"Oh, yes, thank you. I am very well," replied Mercy, in a tone very gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it.
Stephen's face fell. The expression of patient endurance which was habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features. Without speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly into the fire. Some minutes passed in silence. Mercy felt the tears coming again into her eyes. What was this intangible but inexorable thing which stood between this man's soul and hers? She could not doubt that he loved her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of which she had never before had even a conception. It seemed to her that the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond between them which nothing could hinder or harm. Why should they sit thus silent by each other's side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full of joy and gladness? Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on Stephen's lips? Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert. She saw clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was in the dark. She could not even grope her way in this mystery. At last Stephen spoke.
"Mercy," he said, "perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for you. You said yesterday you never would be."
"Oh, no, indeed! I am not," said Mercy. "I am very glad you care so much for me."
"Perhaps you have discovered that you do not care so much for me as you yesterday thought you did."
"Oh, no, no!" replied poor Mercy, in a low tone.
Again Stephen was silent for a long time. Then he said,--
"Ever since I can remember, I have longed for a perfect and absorbing friendship. The peculiar relations of my life have prevented my even hoping for it. My father's and my mother's friends never could be my friends. I have lived the loneliest life a mortal man ever lived. Until I saw you, Mercy, I had never even looked on the face of a woman whom it seemed possible to me that any man could love. Perhaps, when I tell you that, you can imagine what it was to me to look on the face of a woman whom it seems to me no man could help loving. I suppose many men have loved you, Mercy, and many more men will. I do not think any man has ever felt for you, or ever will feel for you, as I feel. My love for you includes every love the heart can know,--the love of father, brother, friend, lover. Young as I am, you seem to me like my child, to be taken care of; and you seem like my sister, to be trusted and loved; and like my friend, to be leaned upon. You see what my life is. You see the burden which I must carry, and which none can share. Do you think that the friendship I can give you can be worth what it would ask? I feel withheld and ashamed as I speak to you. I know how little I can do, how little I can offer. To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love you, if it is only till to-morrow!"
Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could give the faintest indications which way safety might lie. If she had listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair. But every instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded by her profound sympathy for his suffering.
She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very thoughts of his heart.