She answered with a great effort, and seemed upon the verge of tears, "Yes, sir."
"You will leave Minnie, and come here to live."
"Why?"
"Because I make it my business to reward the skilful, the laborious, and the deserving."
She shook her head. "That's not good enough," she said.
"You will keep my house in order," he said; "you will learn to help me with the piano. You will have fine clothes to wear, and the spending of plenty of money."
"Not good enough," she repeated.
"I have read you these five months as if you were a book. You are loyal to your friends. You can keep secrets. I admire you. There are many things that I wish to talk about. But I cannot talk about them except to some one that I can trust. Will you stay?"
She shook her head, but the legless man smiled, as he might have smiled if she had nodded it.
"I am suffering," he said, "the tortures of the damned. I ask you for help and for comfort, and you refuse them."