'Mr. Sharpe,' said Maude, gathering courage from desperation, 'I do not understand why you venture to talk in this style to me! Encouragement I have never given you, even by a glance.'
'Too well do I know that,' said he, affecting a mournful tone; 'but I hope to lead you to—to like me a little in return.'
'I don't dislike you,' said Maude, again seeking to temporize.
'And, if possible, to love me—as a man—one to whom you can entrust a future you cannot see—one whom you will one day call husband.'
He drew nearer as his voice became lower and more earnest, and Maude recoiled hastily in growing dismay, and the words 'a future you cannot see' stung her deeply.
Too well did she know that all this bold love-making was born of the humbled, fallen, and peculiar nature of her position under her ancestral rooftree, and of the ruin of her family—a ruin on which this man was rising under his sister's wing!
'I beseech you, Mr. Sharpe,' said she, 'to say no more on this subject, for more than the merest friendship there can never be between us.'
'Have you thought it over?'
'Certainly not!'
His face clouded, and his usually bold, observant, and keen gray eyes became inflamed with growing anger.