It was a long speech for Carmontelle, who did not ordinarily deal in long sentences. When it was finished he wiped the great drops of moisture from his brow and waited for Van Zandt to speak.
He did not have to wait long.
"I understand you," the young man said, with apparent quietude. "The generous child, by her nobility in coming to seek and to save me, sacrificed her own future. I must—marry her—to appease the proprieties."
With a quiver of pain and regret in his voice, Carmontelle said, gravely:
"Yes."
"I am ready to make her that poor reparation for all that she sacrificed for me," Van Zandt answered, instantly, and for a moment their hands met in a firm, close grip. Then the Southerner said sadly:
"My God, there is no other way, or I could not give up the sweet hopes that for a few hours delighted my soul. But we have talked it over at the club—my friends and hers—and have all agreed that since the whole affair was so widely known, there could be no other way out of it in honor for that poor child than by marriage with you. Van Zandt, you look strange! Do you take it so hard, then? Great Heaven! can it be that you have some prior engagement?"
"I am free—except from the claims of two young sisters, and the trammels of poverty," Van Zandt answered, quietly.
"Poverty, yes, I had thought of that; but she shall not be a burden to you. I am rich, very rich. I will pay the poor child's dowry. I will make it forty thousand dollars, and when I die she shall be my heiress."
"Stop!" Eliot Van Zandt said, with the first sternness he had shown. "You mistake me, Carmontelle; I will take no dowry with my young bride, save her own innocence and beauty."