Mattie had turned pale, but she pointed to the parlour with an imperious hand. Harriet shrank from the boldness of the step, and turned pale also.
"I—I—"
"This is no time for false delicacy between you and him," said Mattie; "he loves you in his heart—he is only saddened by the past belief that you loved Maurice Darcy—if you do not shrink to unite your fate with his, and make his life new and bright again, ask him to be your husband. In his night of life he dare not ask you now."
"I cannot do that," murmured Harriet; "that is beyond my strength."
"You and your father with him in his affliction, taking care of him and rendering him happy! All in your hands, and you shrink back from him!"
"Not from him, but from the bitterness of his reply to me," said Harriet. "Would you dare so much in my place?"
"I—I think so. But then," she added, "I do not understand what true love is—you said so once, if you remember."
Harriet detected something strange and new in Mattie's reply; she looked at Mattie, who was flushed and agitated. For the first time in her life, a vague far-off suspicion seemed to be approaching her.
"I will go in and see him—I will be ruled by what he says to me. Leave me with him, Mattie."
With her own impulsiveness, which had led her right and wrong, she turned the handle of the parlour door, and entered the room, where the old lover, blind and helpless, sat.