She would have interrupted the passionate pleading if her voice had been under control. As it was she sat silent, while he went on.
"I have spoken of my ambitions first, and of your capacity to help them, not because such things are first in my estimation, but because you have treated them as worthy of being put first. There are much higher things to be thought of. What a man achieves is of far less consequence than what a man is. That which I ask of you is to help me be the best that I am capable of being, and for you to be it with me. I want to make the most, the best, the happiest life for you that is possible. If I am permitted to do that, with you to help me do it, it will be an achievement of far greater benefit to the world than any possible external success can be. The home is immeasurably more important, as a factor in human life, and in national life, than the mart, or the senate, or the pulpit, or any other influence can be. It is in happy homes that the saving virtues of humanity are born and nourished. From such homes, more than from all the pulpits, and all the institutions of learning, there flows an influence for good that sweetens all life, preserves morality, and keeps us human beings fit to live. Oh, Barbara, you will never know how longingly I dream of such a home with you at its head! You cannot know how absolutely the worthiness of my life depends upon such a linking of it with yours."
The girl had completely given way to her emotions now, but with that resolute self-mastery which was a dominant note in her nature, she presently controlled herself. The picture that his words had created in her imagination was alluring in the extreme. But she was strong enough to put the dream of happiness aside.
"You do not know all," she said. "You have not heard all I have to tell you. You haven't heard the most important part of it. I have only told you what I thought on that evening when—when you asked—questions. I still think that ought to settle the matter, but you seem to think—perhaps you might have convinced me, or at least—oh, you don't know! There are other reasons—stronger reasons, reasons that nothing can remove."
"Tell me of them. I can imagine no reason whatever that could satisfy me."
"It is very hard to tell. You know I never knew my parents. Both my mother and my father died on the day I was born. I seem to know my mother, because auntie loved her so much, and has talked to me so much about her all my life. But she never talked to me much about my father. His family was a good one—his father having been a banker, with some reputation as an artist also, and my father was his partner in business. But that is all I know of my father—no, that isn't what I meant to say. I meant to say that that is all my aunt ever told me about him, and all I knew until the night when you asked me—questions. After you went away that evening, I went to my room and thought the matter out. I have already told you what conclusions I reached. When I had decided, I went to auntie's room and sat on the side of her bed and told her everything. She cried very bitterly—I didn't understand why at first. After a while she said she didn't at all agree with me in my conclusions, and added:
"'If the things you mention were all, Bab, I should tell you to stop thinking of them, and let Mr. Duncan judge for himself. But there is something else, Bab—something very dreadful. I never intended to tell you of it, but now I must. You would find it out very soon, for Tandy's wife knows it, and if she heard that there was anything between you and Mr. Duncan, she would make haste to talk of it—particularly after what has happened between Tandy and Mr. Duncan. Then you would never forgive me for not telling you.'
"She went on then, and told me what I must tell you. She told me, Mr. Duncan, that I am the daughter of a Thief!"
The girl paused, unable to go on. Duncan saw that she was suffering acutely, and he determined to spare her.
"You must stop now, Barbara," he said in a caressing tone. "You are overwrought. I will hear the rest another time—when you feel stronger and send for me. I am going to say good-night now, so that you may rest. But before I go I want to say that nothing you have told me can make the least difference in my feelings, or my desires, or my purposes. You are what you are. Nothing else matters. When you feel strong enough, I will come again and persuade you to be my wife. Good-night!"