“Millicent, my child, will you be my wife?”
The look of pain and sorrow in her eyes gave him his answer before her lips parted to speak, and he dropped the hand and stood there with the carefully-got-up look of youthfulness or early manhood seeming to fade from him. In a few minutes he appeared to have aged twenty years; his brow grew full of lines, his eyes seemed sunken, and there was a hollowness of cheek that had been absent before.
He stretched out his hand to the table, and slowly sat down, bending forward till his arms rested upon his knees and his hands hung down nerveless between.
“You need not speak, child,” he said sadly. “It has all been one of my mistakes. I see! I see!”
“Sir Gordon, indeed, indeed I do feel honoured!”
“No, no! hush, hush!” he said gently. “It is only natural. It was very weak and foolish of me to ask you; but when this love blinds a man, he says and does foolish things that he repents when his eyes are open. Mine are open now—yes,” he said, with a sad smile, “wide open; I can see it all. But,” he added quickly as he rose, “you are not angry with me, my dear?”
“Angry? Sir Gordon!”
“No: you are not,” he said, taking her hand and patting it softly. “Is it not strange that I could see you so clearly and well, and yet be so blind to myself? Ah, well, it is over now. I suppose no man is perfect, but in my conceit I did not think I could have been so weak. If I had not seen Bayle this morning and realised what had taken place, I should not have let my vanity get the better of me as I did.”
“All this is very, very painful to me, Sir Gordon.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said quickly. “Come, then, this is our little secret, my child. You will keep it—the secret of my mistake? I do love you very much, but you have taught me what it is. I am getting old and not so keen of wits as I was once upon a time. I thought it was man’s love for woman; but you are right, my dear, it is the love that a tender father might bear his child.”