“The plans were in my pocket when I reached your house,” said Dick, who saw he must be frank. “I don’t know that you took them, and if you did, I wouldn’t hold you responsible; but they were taken.”
“You mean that you blame my father for their loss?”
Dick hesitated. He felt that she was giving him a last opportunity, but he could not seize it.
“If I pretended I didn’t blame him, you would find me out and it would stand between us. I wish I could say I’d dropped the papers somewhere or find some other way; but the truth is best.”
Clare turned to him with a hot flush and an angry sparkle in her eyes.
“Then it’s unthinkable that you should marry the daughter of the man whom you believe ruined you. Don’t you see that you can’t separate me from my father? We must stand together.”
“No,” said Dick doggedly, knowing that he was beaten, “I don’t see that. I want you; I want to take you away from surroundings and associations that must jar. Perhaps it was foolish to think you would come, but you helped to save my life when I was ill, and I believe I was then something more to you than a patient. Why have you changed?”
She looked at him with a forced and rather bitter smile. “Need you ask? Can’t you, or won’t you, understand? Could I marry my victim, which is what you are if your suspicions are justified? If they are not, you have offered me an insult I cannot forgive. It is unbearable to be thought the daughter of a thief.”
Dick nerved himself for a last effort. “What does your father’s character matter? I want you. You will be safe from everything that could hurt you if you come to me.” He hesitated and then went on in a hoarse, determined voice: “You must come. I can’t let you live among those plotters and gamblers. It’s impossible. Clare, when I was ill and you thought me asleep, I watched you sitting in the moonlight. Your face was wonderfully gentle and I thought——”
She rose and stopped him with a gesture. “There is no more to be said, Mr. Brandon. I cannot marry you, and if you are generous, you will go.”