“If I had not given you my forgiveness, long ago,” he said, “I should like to offer it to you now, at a price. I wish to God that I could.”
“What do you mean?” she said, a sweet perplexity upon her face. “What price have I to pay for anything?”
“Ah, there it is! It may seem brutal of me to put a literal construction upon what you have used as a figure of speech, but let the truth come out. You are poor, unprotected, alone, and you ask me to go and leave you so! God knows it is little enough that I have it in my power to do, but the possession of money would enable you at least to live as it becomes you to live. I do not speak of your title—it is not what you are called, but what you are, that I have in mind. If you had money, even the small income which I so desire that you shall accept, your life would be different.”
But Bettina looked away from him, and shook her head in the gentle negation which he knew to be so final.
“How would my life be different?” she said.
“You could make it so.”
“In what way?”
“You could travel, for one thing.”
“I do not want to travel. I desired it once, and I got my wish. But with it came a wretchedness that all the travelling in the world could not carry me away from.”