“Things about love, darling.”
He drew her to him almost roughly.
“The whole of my life is nothing but love for you, darling. If I have other cares, other ambitions, they are to win you outright. Suppose that your father, this conspiracy discovered, is arrested and condemned to death and all at once I save him. After that how would he be able to refuse me his daughter’s hand?”
“He will give way some day or other, darling.”
“Never! I have no money ... no means of support.”
“You have your name ... Ralph d’Andresy.”
“Not even that.”
“What do you mean?”
“D’Andresy was my mother’s name, which she took again when she became a widow, and at the bidding of her family whom her marriage had outraged.”
“Why?” said Clarice somewhat dumbfounded by these unexpected revelations.