"Do you understand me, Mercy?" he said.
"I think I do," she replied in a whisper.
"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued. "I have not a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it would be wrong for me to put into words. I stand where I stand; and no mortal can help me, except you. You can help me infinitely. Already the joy of seeing you, hearing you, knowing that you are near, makes all my life seem changed. It is not very much for you to give me, Mercy, after all, out of the illimitable riches of your beauty, your brightness, your spirit, your strength,--just a few words, just a few smiles, just a little love,--for the few days, or it may be years, that fate sets us by each other's side? And you, too, need a friend, Mercy. Your duty to another has brought you where you are singularly alone, for the time being, just as my duty to another has placed me where I must be singularly alone. Is it not a strange chance which has thus brought us together?"
"I do not believe any thing is chance," murmured Mercy. "I must have been sent here for something."
"I believe you were, dear," said Stephen, "sent here for my salvation. I was thinking last night that, no matter if my life should end without my ever knowing what other men call happiness, if I must live lonely and alone to the end, I should still have the memory of you,--of your face, of your hand, and the voice in which you said you cared for me. O Mercy, Mercy! you have not the least conception of what you are to me!" And Stephen stretched out both his arms to her, with unspeakable love in the gesture.
So swiftly that he had not the least warning of her intention, Mercy threw herself into them, and laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. Shame filled her soul, and burned in her cheeks, when Stephen, lifting her as he would a child, and kissing her forehead gently, placed her again in her chair, and said,--
"My darling, I cannot let you do that. I will never ask from you any thing that you can by any possibility come to regret at some future time. I ought perhaps to be unselfish enough not to ask from you any thing at all. I did not mean to; but I could not help it, and it is too late now."
"Yes, it is too late now," said Mercy,--"too late now." And she buried her face in her hands.
"Mercy," exclaimed Stephen, in a voice of anguish, "you will break my heart: you will make me wish myself dead, if you show such suffering as this. I thought that you, too, could find joy, and perhaps help, in my love, as I could in yours. If it is to give you pain and not happiness, it were better for you never to see me again. I will never voluntarily look on your face after to-night, if you wish it,--if you would be happier so."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Mercy. Then, overwhelmed with the sudden realization of the pain she was giving to a man whom she so loved that at that moment she would have died to shield him from pain, she lifted her face, shook back the hair from her forehead, and, looking bravely into his eyes, repeated,--