For some seconds the discomfited sooer neither spoke nor moved. What he had heard appeared to have paralysed him. His lips were white, and drawn tightly over his teeth, with an expression of half-indignation—half-chagrin.
Skilled as he certainly was in woman’s heart, he had heard enough to convince him, that he could never win that of Marion Wade. Her declaration had been made in a tone too serious—too sober in its style—to leave him the vestige of a hope. Her heart had been surely surrendered. Strange she should say stolen! Stranger still she should declare it to be broken!
Both were points that might have suggested curious speculations; but at that moment Scarthe was not in the vein for indulging in idle hypotheses. He had formed the resolution to possess the hand, and the fortune, of Marion Wade. If she could not give her heart, she could give these—as compensation for the saving of her father’s life.
“Your gratitude,” said he, no longer speaking in a strain of fervour, but with an air of piqued formality, “your gratitude, beautiful Marion, would go far with me. I would make much sacrifice to obtain it; but there is something you can bestow, which I should prize more.”
Marion looked—“What is it?”
“Your hand.”
“That then is the price of my father’s life?”
“It is.”
“Captain Scarthe! what can my hand be worth to you, without—”
“Your heart, you would say? I must live in hopes to win that. Fair Marion, reflect! A woman’s heart may be won more than once.”