"Manella, Manella!" she said—"You do not know what you say—you cannot understand the responsibility—it would make you a prisoner for life—"
"Oh, I understand!" and Manella shook back her dark hair with the little proud, decisive gesture characteristic of her temperament—"Yes!—and I wish to be so imprisoned! If we had not been rescued by you, we should have died together!—now you will help us to live together! Will you not? You are a little white angel—a fairy!—yes!—to me you are!—your heart is full of unspent love! You will let me stay with him always—always?—As his nurse?—his servant?—his slave?"
Morgana looked at her tenderly, touched to the quick by her eagerness and her beauty, now intensified by the glow of excitement which gave a roseate warmth to her cheeks and deeper darkness to her eyes. All ignorant and unsuspecting as she was of the world's malignity and cruel misjudgments, how could it be explained to her that a woman of such youth and loveliness, electing to dwell alone with a man, even if the man were a hopeless paralytic, would make herself the subject of malicious comment and pitiless scandal! Some reflection of this feeling showed itself in the expression of Morgana's face while she hesitated to answer, holding the girl's hand in her own and stroking it affectionately the while. Manella, gazing at her as a worshipper might gaze at a sacred picture, instinctively divined her thought.
"Ah? I know what you would say!" she exclaimed, "That I might bring shame to him by my companionship—always—yes!—that is possible!—wicked people would talk of him and judge him wrongly—"
"Oh, Manella, dear!" murmured Morgana—"Not him—not him—but YOU!"
"Me?" She tossed back her wealth of hair, and smiled—"What am I? Just a bit of dust in his path! I am nothing at all! I do not care what anybody says or thinks of ME!—what should it matter! But see!—to save HIM—let me be his wife!"
"His wife!" Morgana repeated the words in amazement, and Lady Kingswood, laying down her work, gazed at the two beautiful women, the one so spiritlike and fair, the other so human and queenly, in a kind of stupefaction, wondering if she had heard aright.
"His wife! Yes!"... Manella spoke with a thrill of exultation in her voice,—and she caught Morgana's hand and kissed it fondly—"His wife! It is the only way I can be his slave-woman! Let me marry him while he knows nothing, so that I may have the right to wait upon him and care for him! He shall never know! For—if he comes to himself again—please God he will!—as soon as that happens I will go away at once. He will never know!—he shall never learn who it is that has cared for him! You see? I shall never be really his wife—nor he my husband—only in name. And then—when he comes out of the darkness—when he is strong and well once more, he will go to YOU!—you whom he loves—"
Morgana silenced her by a gesture which was at once commanding and sweetly austere.
"Dear girl, he never loved me!" she said, gently—"He has always loved himself. Yes!—you know that as well as I do! Once—I fancied I loved HIM—but now I know my way of love is not his. Let us say no more of it! You wish to be his wife? Do you think what that means? He will never know he is your husband—never recognise you,—your life will be sacrificed to a helpless creature whose brain is gone—who will be unconscious of your care and utterly irresponsive. Oh, sweet, TOO loving Manella!—you must not pledge the best years of your youth and beauty to such a destiny!"