He trembled violently, as if struggling with his love of her, and something mental seemed for a minute to load or fetter his tongue till he said, in a low voice,
'If I can prove that I have the right to ask you, will you marry me—will you be my wife, Laura?'
'Do not ask me,' she replied, trembling in turn.
'Why—why?' he asked, impetuously.
'Are you aware how strangely you prelude your proposal by referring to some eventuality, Captain Dalton?' said she, with some hauteur; 'but be assured that I can never be more to you than I am now, were I to live a hundred years.'
'And so you are but a cruel coquette after all,' said Dalton, recovering himself; 'one who has fooled me—a man of the world, as I deemed myself—to the top of my bent, only to throw me over at last. Well, perhaps I am rightly served,' he added, bitterly.
'You are rightly served, Captain Dalton,' said she, laughing once more.
'What do you know—what do you mean?'
'What your own heart tells you; but here is a visitor, Bella Chevenix; let us at least part friends.'
'Mere friends we can never be,' said he, sadly.