“All right, Doll, I’ll steam straight ahead this time. It is this. I have sometimes lately been vain enough to think that you cared a little about me, Doll, although I am as blind as a bat. I want to ask you if it is true. You must tell me plain, Doll, because I cannot see your eyes to learn the truth from them.”
She turned quite pale at his words, and her eyes rested upon his blind orbs with a look of unutterable tenderness. So it had come at last.
“Why do you ask me that question. Ernest? Whether or no I care for you, I am very sure that you do not care for me.”
“You are not quite right there, Doll, but I will tell you why I ask it; it is not out of mere curiosity.
“You know all the history of my life, Doll, or at least most of it. You know how I loved Eva, and gave her all that a foolish youngster can give to a weak woman—gave it in such a way that I can never have it back again. Well, she deserted me; I have lost her. The best happiness of my life has been wrecked beyond redemption; that is a fact which must be accepted as much as the fact of my blindness. I am physically and morally crippled, and certainly in no fit state to ask a woman to marry me on the ground of my personal advantages. But if, my dear Doll, you should, as I have sometimes thought, happen to care about anything so worthless, then, you see, the affair assumes a different aspect.”
“I don’t quite understand you. What do you mean?” she said, in a low voice.
“I mean that in that case I will ask you if you will take me for a husband.”
“You do not love me, Ernest; I should weary you.”
He felt for her hand, found it, and took it in his own. She made no resistance.
“Dear,” he said, “it is this way: I can never give you that passion I gave to Eva, because, thank God, the human heart can know it but once in a life; but I can and will give you a husband’s tenderest love. You are very dear to me, Doll, though it is not in the same way that Eva is dear. I have always loved you as a sister, and I think that I should make you a good husband. But, before you answer me, I want you to thoroughly understand about Eva. Whether I marry or not, I fear that I shall never be able to shake her out of my mind. At one time I thought that perhaps if I made love to other women I might be able to do so, on the principle that one nail drives out another. But it was a failure; for a month or two I got the better of my thoughts, then they would get the better of me again. Besides, to tell you the truth, I am not quite sure that I wish to do so. My trouble about this woman has become a part of myself. It is, as I told you, my ‘evil destiny,’ and goes where I go. And now, dear Doll, you will see why I asked you if you really cared for me before I asked you to marry me. If you do not care for me, then it will clearly not be worth your while to marry me, for I am about as poor a catch as a man can well be; if you do—well, then it is a matter for your consideration.”