“My Beatrice, you cannot think that I would ask you for your love without hoping to marry you?”
“Then let us be married to-morrow.”
She did not laugh, speaking the words. He could see that she would not hesitate to marry him at any moment.
“Would to heaven that we could be, my dearest! But could there be anything more cruel than for a penniless man, such as I am, to ask a girl, such as you are, to marry him?”
“I cannot see where the cruelty would be. People have been very happy together before now, though they have had very little money between them.”
“My dear Beatrice, you were not meant to pass your life in squalid lodgings, with none of the refinements of life around you; and I—well, I have known what roughing it means; I would face the worst alone; but I am not selfish enough to seek to drag you down to my level—to ask you to face hardship for my sake.”
“But I——”
“Do not say anything, darling: anything that you may say will only make it the harder to part. I can do it, Beatrice; I am strong enough to say good-bye.”
“Then say it, Harold.”
She stood facing him, with her wonderful eyes looking steadily into his. The message that they conveyed to him was such as he could not fail to read aright. He knew that if he had said goodbye, he would never have a chance of looking into those eyes again.