"Those who love me—who is there to love me now?"
"Johanna Oakley, I dare not and will not utter words that come thronging to my lips, but which I fear might be unwelcome to your ears; I will not say that I can answer the question that you have asked, because it would sound ungenerous at such a time as this, when you have met me to talk about the fate of another. Oh! forgive me, that, hurried away by the feeling of a moment, I have uttered these words, for I meant not to utter them."
Johanna looked at him in silence, and it might be that there was the slightest possible tinge of reproach in her look, but it was very slight, for one glance at that ingenuous countenance would be sufficient to convince the most sceptical of the truth and single-mindedness of its owner: of this there could be no doubt whatever, and if anything in the shape of a reproach was upon the point of coming from her lips, she forbore to utter it.
"May I hope," he added, "that I have not lowered myself in your esteem, Miss Oakley, by what I have said?"
"I hope," she said gently, "that you will continue to be my friend."
He laid an emphasis on the word "friend," and he fully understood what she meant to imply thereby, and after a moment's pause said—
"Heaven forbid that ever, by word or by action, Johanna, I should do aught to deprive myself of that privilege. Let me be yet your friend, since—"
He left the sentence unfinished, but if he had added the words—"Since I can do no more," he could not have made it more evident to Johanna that those were the words he intended to utter.
"And now," he added, "that I hope and trust we understand each other better than we did, and you are willing to call me by the name of friend, let me once more ask of you, by the privilege of such a title, to be careful of yourself, and not to risk much in order that you may, perhaps, have some remote chance of achieving very little."
"But can I endure this dreadful suspense?"