“Does she return your affection?”
“That’s more than I can say. I’ve never seen any reason to think so.”
“But you love her?”
“I would have died for her!” said the young man, with an earnest ring in his voice. “I have perilled my life, and the priests say, my soul. All this day have I been searching along the Dorchester way, and have found every one of them but two—her, and one other. I did my best, too, to save her and hers before the blow fell.”
“What would you do, if you found her?”
“Take her away to a safe place, if she would let me, and guard her there at the risk of my life—at the cost, if need be.”
“The maid whom you seek,” said Haldane, after a further examination of the charred sticks on the hearth, “is a pious and devout maiden; has your life been hitherto fit to mate with such?”
“Whatever I have been,” was the reply, “I would give her no cause for regret hereafter. A man who has suffered as I have has no mind left for trifling. She should do what she would with me.”
Haldane seemed to hesitate whether she should give further information or not.
“Can’t you trust me?” asked the young man sorrowfully. “I have done ill deeds in my life, but one thing I can say boldly,—I never yet told a lie. Oh, tell me where to go, if my love yet lives? Can’t you trust me?”