"No family ties to break, should I wish, if it were possible, for you to stay with me always?"
"Oh, sir, you would not speak so if you—if I could be honest and brave with you."
"My child—oh! my child; I cannot bear to see those tears. If you knew how dear you are to me, you would think well before you cast anything between us."
She buries her face in her hands; for a sacred space her heart throbs in its joy, and she feels that it were well worth the coming years of hunger to taste the sweet bliss as she tastes it now; and then she meekly looks her situation in the face.
"There are no family ties keeping me from you," she murmurs, as firmly as she may; "but it would not be honorable for me to accept any gratitude from you, or to accede to any such request as you have made, because—I did not come here and find you out with any craven hope of reward. I have barely done my duty toward you, and have had no thought of buying your love."
"I do not understand. I love you, Heaven knows, most fervently, Perdita; but whether you have bought it or not, I cannot say. It is yours, and cannot be recalled."
"And I cannot take it under such circumstances as those in which I won it. When you understand fully your affairs, you will then see how mercenary I would be to accept your love now."
"Mercenary? My poor child? I offer you this poor, wasted hand, and a broken constitution, and penniless prospects wherewith to be happy; and it is a part of my native selfishness to imagine that my great love could compensate for all drawbacks, but there is not the smallest room for suspecting you of mercenary motives—not the smallest."
"I have heard it said"—this with piteous hesitation—"that Colonel Brand was to be reinstated in his rights—that a great estate in England was going to be offered to him."
The invalid half raises himself on his elbow, and laughs heartily.