“Well done,” he said, laughing in his old merry fashion, “well done, indeed! Oh! what favouring god put it into the head of that honest old miser, Stephanus, from year to year to hoard up all that sum of gold against an hour of sudden need which none could foresee!”
“My God and hers,” answered Nehushta solemnly, “to Whom if He give you space, you should be thankful, which, by the way, is more than Stephanus is, who has seen so much of your savings squandered in an hour.”
“Your savings?” said Miriam, looking up. “Did you buy me, Marcus?”
“I suppose so, beloved,” he answered.
“Then, then, I am your slave?”
“Not so, Miriam,” he replied nervously. “As you know well, it is I who am yours. All I ask of you is that you should become my wife.”
“That cannot be, Marcus,” she answered in a kind of cry. “You know that it cannot be.”
His face turned pale.
“After all that has come and gone between us, Miriam, do you still say so?”
“I still say so.”