“Oh, I am so alone!” she moaned, tears raining over her face. “This great house seems so desolate, so empty! I feel as if I could not live here another day,” she concluded, glancing around the spacious, elegant room, and shivering nervously.
“I know you must be lonely, dear,” he said, trembling himself, as he leaned eagerly toward her, “and it pains me deeply to see you so sorrowful. I would that I might shield you from every pang, from every ill in life. Allison, may I?”
His voice was husky from mingled emotion and tenderness; he was very pale from the intensity of passion that throbbed in every pulse of his being; and Allison, looking up at him with a sudden shock, read in his burning eyes the story that he was yearning to tell her.
A hot flush instantly suffused her own face; then she shrank from him with a gesture of unmistakable repugnance.
But he had no intention of losing the vantage-ground that he had gained, and, bending still nearer her, he captured one of her hands.
“I perceive that you have fathomed my secret, my darling,” he said, in a tremulous tone. “Yes, I love you, sweet. I have loved you ever since you were a little girl, and have lived for years with the one hope in view of some day winning your love in return. Now let me become your guardian in more senses than one, Allison. Become my wife and give me the right to smooth every rough place in life for you; let me shield you from every rude wind and storm——”
“Oh, don’t! don’t!” suddenly interposed the girl, and snatching her hand from his grasp. “Oh, why do you say such things to me? You have no right to take advantage of my sorrow and loneliness. I will not listen to you!”
“Hush, my child!” said her companion gently, but growing very white about the mouth. “My declaration may seem somewhat premature, but I have waited many years for the time to come when I might tell you that all the hopes of my life were centered in you. I can wait still longer, Allison—I can even be as patient as Jacob of old if you will give me a crumb of comfort—if you will tell me that I may hope to win you at last——”
“No! no! I never could marry you,” Alison cried wildly, and with such significant emphasis there was no mistaking her attitude toward her would-be lover, and which stung him like a lash.