"It is but too true—too true, Jack," replied Laura, while her tears fell fast, and she strove to release her trembling hands from her lover's passionate clasp.
Laura Wenlock was more than merely handsome; in her soft face there was a singular and piquante charm, a loveliness that was more penetrating and of a higher order than mere regularity of feature, as its expression varied so much—a charm that would have delighted an artist, while it would have baffled his powers to reproduce it. Her eyes were violet blue; her hair was auburn, shot with gold, and ruddy golden it seemed ever in the sunshine.
"You don't mean to say that you are about to marry for money?" said Westbrook impetuously.
"Far from it, Jack—oh! don't think so meanly—so basely of me," urged Laura piteously.
"What then?"
"With money—sounds different, doesn't it, Jack, dear?" said the girl with a sob and a sickly smile.
Westbrook gnawed his thick brown moustache, and eyed her gloomily, then almost malevolently and, anon; pleadingly, for his fate was in her hands.
"From all I have heard," said he, "I feared it would come to this; but oh, no, no, surely it cannot be—that I am now to lose you!"
"It must be; the fatal papers have already been prepared."
"The settlements!"