"I can't, that's the worst of it," she answered; "all through the stupid trusteeship. It is too provoking;" and she scuffled her feet impatiently.
"How much would you be prepared to give me?" he asked, for the subject amused him.
"All."
A stab of melancholy happiness shot through him; that feeling which he had not been able to recapture before. Now he was obliged to suppress it and goad himself into keeping to the comic side of the question. With a hurried laugh, he cried--
"Hullo, little one, no one can call you stingy."
An anxious look was cast at him, which asked plainly, "Don't you understand me?" Then she crouched down and drew herself shivering away from him, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, over her parted lips and clenched teeth.
"If this isn't love," he thought, "my name is not Sellenthin." A wild jocund impulse within him bid him snatch her in his arms, shout the house awake, shout to the whole world, "Here, see this child, this woman-child is--my wife." He knew that it would have been his salvation, but he did not do it. He did not do it because the fist of his giant care was on his throat almost throttling him, so that the breath was dammed up in his broad chest, and his mighty limbs shackled under the oppressive weight.
"Thank you, dear child, thank you," he said hoarsely. "You meant it well, and I shall never forget it of you."
He bent down and kissed the gleaming forehead held up to him so candidly.
"There is still time," cried the wild voice again....