Something in her manner had wrung out this cry of fear and now, bending over her as she sat with her face buried in her lap he waited for her answer. It had come like a thunderbolt to Alice, that she, and not Golden Hair, was the subject of his story—she the fair blossom growing among the New England hills. She did not guess that they were one and the same, for Hugh would not have her swayed ever so slightly by gratitude.
Alice saw how she had led him on, and her white lips quivered with pain, for, alas! she did not love him as he should be loved, and she could not deceive him, though every fibre of her heart bled and ached for him. Lifting up her head at last she exclaimed,
“You don’t mean me, Hugh? Oh, you don’t mean me?”
“Yes, darling,” and he clasped in his own the hand raised imploringly toward him. “Yes, darling, I mean you. I love you and you must be mine. I shall die without you. You can mould me at your will. You can teach me the narrow way I want to find, Alice, more than you guess. We will walk it hand in hand, yours the stronger one at first, mine the stronger last, when I’ve been taught by you. Will you, Alice, will you be my wife, my darling, my idol? I know I have no money, just as I know you do not care for that. You will not prize me less for daring to ask you, an heiress, to be mine. I have no money, no position, but I have willing hands and a loving heart, which will answer in their stead. Will you be my wife?”
Alice had never before heard a voice so earnest, so full of meaning, as the one now pleading with her to be what she could not be, and a pang keener than any she had ever felt, or believed it possible for her to feel, shot through her heart as the dread conviction was forced upon her that she was to blame for all this. She had misled him, unwittingly, it is true, but that did not help him now; the harm, the wrong were just the same, and they loomed up before her in all their appalling magnitude. What could she do to atone? Alas! there was nothing except to be what he asked, and that she could not do. She could not be Hugh’s wife. She would as soon have married her brother, if she had one. But she must do something, and sliding from her stool she sank upon her knees—her proper attitude—upon her knees before Hugh, whom she had wronged so terribly, and burying her face in Hugh’s own hands, she sobbed,
“Oh, Hugh, Hugh, you don’t know what you ask. I love you dearly, but only as my brother—believe me, Hugh, only as a brother. I wanted one so much—one of my own, I mean; but God denied that wish, and gave me you instead. I did not like you at first—that is, before I saw you. I was sorry you were here, but I got over that. I pitied first, and then I came to like or love you so much, but only as my brother; and if I let you see that love, it was because it is my nature to caress those whom I love—because I thought you understood that ’twas only as my brother. I cannot be your wife. I—oh, Hugh, forgive me for making you so unhappy. I’m sorry I ever came here, but I cannot go away. I’ve learned to love my Kentucky home. Let me stay just the same. Let me really be what I thought I was, your sister. You will not send me away?”
She looked up at him now, but quickly turned away, for the expression of his white, haggard face was more than she could bear, and she knew there was a pain, keener than any she had felt, a pang which must be terrible, to crush a strong man as Hugh was crushed.
“Forgive me, Hugh,” she said, as he did not speak, but sat gazing at her in a kind of stunned bewilderment. “You would not have me for your wife, if I did not love you?”
“Never, Alice, never!” he answered; “but it is not any easier to bear. I don’t know why I asked you, why I dared hope that you could think of me. I might have known you could not. Nobody does. I cannot win their love. I don’t know how.”
He put her gently from him, and arose to leave the room, but something mastered his will, and brought him back again to where she knelt, her face upon his chair, as she silently prayed to know just what was right. Something she had said about his sending her away rang in his ears, and he felt that the knowing she was gone would be the bitterest dreg in all the bitter cup, so he said to her, entreatingly—