“Yes, I have pained you, when I would give my heart's blood to make you happy. Oh! Mercedes, I cannot give you up, it is impossible while I live. Do you command me to do so? Do you wish it? You know that I have loved you from the first moment I saw you; when I lifted you in my arms. The exquisite pleasure I felt then, and the yearning I have felt ever since, to hold you in my arms again, as my own sweet wife, that longing tells me incessantly that I can never love any one else; that I must win you or renounce love forever on earth. Tell me, will you cruelly repel me?”
She was silent, listening with averted face, as if afraid to meet his gaze, but she did not withdraw her hands, which he still held in both his own, as if he would never willingly release them again.
“Mercedes, say that you reject me only to obey your mother, and I will not despair, for I know that your father does not object to me; on the contrary, he sanctions my love, he would accept me as his son-in-law.”
She turned quickly, gazed at him with an eager, inquiring look.
“Yes, he gave me permission to follow you and ask you to be my wife.”
“What? He? My papa did that?”
“Yes. When he saw me looking so wretched with the pain of parting from you, he said to me, ‘Cheer up; faint heart never won fair lady.’ I said to him, if you tell me that in earnest, I'll jump aboard the steamer and follow her. He repeated the quotation, adding: ‘Go and try your luck.’ Is not that sufficient?”
“Darling papa, he is so kind,” she said, eluding Clarence's question, but her evident gratitude toward her father spoke volumes.
“Indeed he is. His heart is full of nobility. He does not permit unjust prejudices to influence him into dislikes.”
“You must not blame my poor mamma. She thinks you did some wrong act, but she is not prejudiced against you, nor does she dislike you.”