“I will confide in you now, Sir Denton.”
“No, no, my dear boy. Leave it all unsaid.”
“No; there is no time like the present. You ought to know, and I can never revive the subject again. Possibly, in the future, the opportunity may never come.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not blind to the risk of going to such a place. I don’t suppose I shall return.”
“My dear boy, if you are going to take that morbid view of the task,” cried Sir Denton, “you shall not go. But pish! you are low-spirited now from the refusal you have had. Work, man, work. Au revoir.”
“Sir Denton,” said Neil gravely, “you must know the truth now. In ignorance of her early life, I loved Nurse Elisia very dearly.”
“Then, my dear boy—” cried the old man excitedly.
“Stop, sir; you were mistaken. I asked her to be my wife.”
“Mistaken? She refused you? Impossible!”