“I am powerless to save any one,” said Neva gently. “Your help must come from above, Rufus.”
“I want an earthly arm to cling to,” pleaded Rufus, his tones growing shrill with the sudden fear that she would reject him. “I have in me all noble impulses, Neva; I have in me the ability to become such a man as was your father. I would foster all noble enterprises; I would become great for your sake. I would study my art and make a name of which you should be proud. Will you stoop from your high estate, Neva, and have pity upon a weak, cowardly soul that longs to be strong and brave? Will you smile upon my great love for you, and let me devote my life to your happiness and comfort?”
His wild eyes looked into hers with a prayerfulness that went to her soul. He seemed to regard her as his earthly saviour—and such indeed, if she accepted him, she would be, for she would bring him fortune, and, what he valued more, her affection, her pure life, her brave soul, on which his own weak nature might be stayed.
“Poor Rufus!” said Neva, with a tenderness that a sister might have shown him. “My poor boy!” and her small face beamed with sisterly kindness upon the tall, awkward fellow, the words coming strangely from her lips. “I am sorry for you.”
“And you will marry me?” he cried eagerly.
The young face became grave almost to sternness. The lovely eyes gloomed over with a great shadow.
“I want to obey papa’s wishes as if they were commands,” she said. “I have thought and prayed, day after day and night after night. I like you, Rufus, and I cannot hear your appeals unmoved. I believe I am not selfish, if I am true to my higher nature, and obey the instincts God has implanted in my soul. I must be untrue to God, to myself, and to my own instincts, or I must pay no heed to that last letter and to the last wishes of poor papa. Which shall I do? I have decided first one way, and then the other. The possibility that that letter was—was not written by papa—and there is such a possibility—I cannot now help but consider. Forgive me, Rufus, but I have decided, and I think papa, who has looked down from heaven upon my perplexity and my anguish, must approve my course. I feel that I am doing right, when I say,” and here her hand took his, “that—that I cannot marry you.”
“Not marry me! Oh, Neva!”
“It costs me much to say it, Rufus, but I must be true to myself, to my principles of honor. I do not love you as a wife should love her husband. I could not stand up before God’s altar and God’s minister, and perjure myself by saying that I thus loved you. No, Rufus, no; it may not be!”
Rufus bowed his head upon the piano, and sobbed aloud.