“Beatrice, my beloved,” said he, and her face brightened. Nothing that commenced with the assumption that she was his beloved could be very bad. “I have been in great trouble—I am in great trouble still.”
She was by his side in a moment, and had taken one of his hands in hers. She held it, looking up to his face with her eyes full of sympathy and concern.
“My dearest,” he said, “you are all that is good and gracious. We must part, and for ever.”
She laughed, still looking at his face. There really was something laughable in the sequence of his words. But her laugh did not make his task any easier.
“When I told you that I loved you, Beatrice, I told you the truth,” said he. “If I were to tell you anything else now it would be a falsehood. But I had no right ever to speak to you of love. I am absolutely penniless.”
“That is no confession,” said she. “I knew all along that you were dependent upon your father for everything. I felt for you—so did Mr. Airey.”
“Mr. Airey?” said he. “Mr. Airey mentioned to you that I was a beggar?”
“Oh, he didn’t say that. He only said—what did he say?—something about the affairs of the world being very badly arranged, otherwise you should have thousands—oh, he said he felt for you with all his heart.”
“‘With all his appreciation of the value of an opportunity,’ he should have said. Never mind Edmund Airey. You, yourself, can see, Beatrice, how impossible it would be for any man with the least sense of honour, situated as I am, to ask you to wait—to wait for something indefinite.”
“You did not ask me to wait for anything. You did not ask me to wait for your love—you gave it to me at once. There is nothing indefinite in love.”