"Oh!" cried the young girl, clinging to her lover, a wild look in her eyes, "papa is not going to—die! Do not tell me that. He is better to-day, and he will—he must grow yet stronger."
"My darling," said Sir William, holding her close to him, and speaking with sorrowful tenderness, "I am not going to deceive you. It would not be right for me to do so. But Dr. Waters thinks that he cannot stay with us much longer. He believes that he will rally for a while, but the state of his system warns him that it will be but a very little while. And, Virgie, your father wants us to be married at once. Darling, shall it be as he wishes?"
But Virgie hardly heard these latter sentences.
She threw herself upon that manly breast in a wild burst of grief.
It was a dreadful blow to be told that the die was cast, that her father's doom was very near.
In an indefinite way she had been dreading it ever since he himself had talked so plainly about it to her, but with the buoyancy of youth she had kept hoping against hope, and refusing to believe the fearful truth.
Sir William held her in her fond embrace, and allowed her to weep until her tears were spent.
He knew that it was better to let her grief have its way. She would be calmer and stronger afterward, though every sob and tear was bitter pain to his loving heart.
She grew more quiet after a time, and at length he felt that he might again speak of the subject so near his heart.
"Will you be my wife, Virgie? I would not have forced this upon you just now but for your father's desire, and because Dr. Waters, who must return to-day to his own duties, can make all necessary arrangements for us upon his arrival in Virginia City.