Kathleen told her lover, between sobs and tears, while she rested close in the shelter of his loving arms, all her sad story.
Ralph Chainey listened with bated breath, his eyes dim with moisture, to the story of Kathleen's persecutions.
"What stupid people they must have been at the asylum not to listen to your strange story! I will have them indicted for unlawfully detaining you!" he exclaimed indignantly.
"Never mind that, as they can never find me again," she replied, happily.
"They could not take you if they did," he answered; and then he unfolded to her, gently and tenderly, his wish to make her his wife at once, and asked her if she would consent. "It is the most proper thing for us to marry at once," he said. "Unfortunately, we can not be married in Philadelphia without a license, which, as it is near midnight now, I could not procure until to-morrow. But we can take a train within the hour for Washington, and be married, without the necessity of a license, by the first minister we can wake up there. Do you think you can agree to this, darling?"
She hesitated; she said, anxiously:
"Had we not better go straight to Boston and ask papa's leave? Perhaps he would not like it if we were married without his consent."
Why did he not tell her the truth—that there was no use in going to Boston; that her father was dead and she had no home there; that her step-mother and her selfish daughter had inherited the Carew millions?
He could not bear to inflict this shock upon her so soon. She had suffered so much already, poor little darling! that he would save her this added blow for a little while. He could fancy how hard she would take it, to come back to the world, fatherless, penniless, homeless. Let him make her his wife first, and she would have love, wealth, and position almost equal to what she had lost. Then he would have the right to comfort her with his devotion.