"How would it be possible," said Rachel, "that I should go away? What would you do if I left you alone?"
"Well, as to that," Sir William replied, speaking slowly in order that he might appear to be speaking calmly, "I don't know, in any case, what I shall do." And his face looked grey and worn, conveying to Rachel, as she looked across at him, an impression of helpless old age in the father who had hitherto been to her a type of everything that was capable and well preserved. She sprang up and went to him.
"Father, dear father," she cried amidst her sobs, as she hid her face on his shoulder. "You know that you are more to me than any one else in the world. Let me help you—let me try, do let me try." And at the sound of the words Gore became again conscious of the immeasurable, dark gulf there was between what one human being had been able to do for him and what any other in the world could try to do. And his own sorrow rose darkly before him and swept away everything else—even the sorrow of his child. It was almost bitterly that he said, as if the words were wrung from him involuntarily—
"Nobody can help me now."
"Oh, father!" Rachel cried again miserably. "Let me try."
"Darling, I know," he said, recollecting himself at the sight of her distress, "and you know what my little girl is to me; but there are some things that even a daughter cannot do. And," he went on, "it would really be a comfort to me, I think, if"—he was going to say, "if you were married," but he altered it as he saw a swift change pass over Rachel's face—"if I knew you were happy; if you had a home of your own and were provided for."
"Do you think that would be a comfort to you?" asked Rachel, trying to speak in an almost indifferent tone. "That you would be glad if I were to go away from you to a home of my own?"
"Yes," he said, "I think it would." And as he spoke he felt that the burden of giving Rachel companionship and trying to help her to bear her grief would be removed from him. "Besides," he went on, with an attempt at a smile, "it is not as if you would go far away from me altogether; you will only be a few streets off, after all. I could come to you whenever I wanted, and even—who knows?—I might sometimes ask you for your hospitality."
"If I thought that——" Rachel said, and caught herself up.