"I don't love him," she whispered.
"Never mind, he loves you—he is a good fellow—he will treat you well. If you marry him you need not be parted from me. You and he can live together here—here, in this house. There need be no difference at all, except that you will have saved your father."
Paget spoke with outward calmness, but the anxiety under his words made them thrill. Each slowly uttered sentence fell like a hammer of pain on the girl's head.
"I don't understand," she said again in a husky tone. "I would, I will do anything to save you. But Mr. Wyndham is poor and young—in some things he is younger than I am. How can my marrying him take the load off your heart, father? Father, dear, speak."
"I can give you no reason, Valentine, you must take it on trust. It is all a question of your faith in me. I do not see any loophole of salvation but through you, my little girl. If you marry Wyndham I see peace and rest ahead, otherwise we are amongst the breakers. If you do this thing for your old father, Valentine, you will have to do it in the dark, for never, never, I pray, until Eternity comes, must you know what you have done."
Valentine Paget had always a delicate and bright color in her cheeks. It was soft as the innermost blush of a rose, and this delicate and lovely color was one of her chief charms. Now it faded, leaving her young face pinched and small and drawn. She sank down on the hearthrug, clasping her hands in her lap, her eyes looking straight before her.
"I never wanted to marry," she said at last. "Certainly not yet, for I am only a child. I am only seventeen, but other girls of seventeen are old compared to me. When you are only a child, it is dreadful to marry some one you don't care about, and it is dreadful to do a deed in the dark. If you trusted me, father—if you told me all the dreadful truth whatever it is, it might turn me into a woman—an old woman even—but it would be less bad than this. This seems to crush me—and oh, it does frighten me so dreadfully."
Mr. Paget rose from his seat and walked up and down the room.
"You shan't be crushed or frightened," he said. "I will give it up."
"And then the blow will fall on you?"