“Tell me first why you have left home?” he asked.
A faint colour came upon her cheek—“That comes last of all,” she said, “and till you hear the first you will not understand. Frederick has come home. He lives with us again as he used to do; and last night—we talked—and he said he loved me. He must not love me, it is terrible so much as to think of it, after what has happened. And how could I live there and see him every day when that is what he is thinking? So I remembered you, and came to you to help me. Now, please, I want to go away—to stay there no longer—Take me, as you said you would—Take me away.”
“Innocent, do you understand what you are saying?” he asked, once more taking both her hands in his. Her words roused him out of all secondary feelings. There was no passion left in his steady, middle-aged soul for any woman; but this strange creature had charmed him by her strangeness, her rarity, the pathos of her beauty. She had refused him as few men are refused, and now had she come to offer herself to him? Middle-aged as he was, he could not refuse to be moved by a quickening thrill of excitement; nothing could have made him an impassioned lover, but he was glad to have her, and his heart grew fond and tender as he held her hands. “Innocent!” he repeated, “do you mean this? Think! Do not encourage me and then disappoint me. There is but one way that I can take you anywhere. You must marry me first; do you know?”
She shrank a little instinctively, looking at him all the time with serious eyes, which shrank not, and then said slowly, “Yes—I know.”
He was so startled by this assent, so taken by surprise, and, at the same time, so put upon his guard by all the decorums and punctilios of which she knew nothing, that he made no such response as a lover might have made. He uttered some broken exclamations in his bewilderment. The surprise was a joyful one; but yet it was a surprise, and brought as much wonder with it as pleasure. Then Sir Alexis remembered suddenly, in the midst of his confusion, what was owing to the self-respect of a woman who had thus rashly risked herself and her womanly credit. He kissed the small, slender, girlish hands one after another with reverential fervour. “Thanks, a thousand times, for your generous confidence,” he said. “I hope I am worthy of the trust. It is settled between us, then, of your free will, Innocent—of your free will? you will be my wife?”
“Yes,” she said once more, grave as if she were uttering the sentence of her own fate. He bent over her, and kissed her forehead; then rising hastily rang the bell.
“Go to my sister,” he said, giving his orders at the door of the room, orders which Innocent neither heard nor comprehended; “and ask her to come to me at once. She will do me a great service if she will be here in half an hour.” Then he came back, and sat down by his future bride.
“Innocent, my darling, now that this is settled between us you can speak to me with confidence. What is it? Frederick would not, could not, have been rude to you? He is a gentleman at least. It is well for me, however, that this happened; but tell me, dear, what it was,” he said, drawing her close to him. It seemed incredible to see her there in his house, bestowing herself upon him, she who only the other day had been so startled by his advances. He was flattered, touched, startled, full of wonder, not knowing what to do or to say.
“Yes,” said Innocent, with a sigh, “but there is a great deal to say first. Perhaps when I have told you, you will cease to care, you will be angry, you will not want me. You say No; but you don’t know what I have to say.”
“Nothing you can say will affect me, my dear,” he said, with almost fatherly fondness, and an incredulous, admiring smile.