"Then, in that case, it looks as if you will gain little by becoming my wife, and that I shall gain nothing."
"Rodney, I want you to get out of your head what I said the other night. I don't want to force you to marry me, and I never did."
"Then you've rather an unfortunate way of expressing yourself, don't you think so, my dear Mabel?"
"I--I didn't know how else to do what I wanted to do. It's quite true that if I'm not going to be your wife I'll kill myself; but that doesn't matter--I'd just as soon die as live. But I do want to save you, and the only way I can do it is for you to marry me."
"That may keep you from playing the tell-tale, but how is it going to affect Mr. Dale?"
"He won't tell if I'm your wife."
"Won't he? Why? I should have thought, if your story's correct, that he'd have told all the more, that disappointment would have inflamed him to madness."
Rodney, as he said this, struck a match to light his pipe, and laughed. Nothing could have seemed less like laughter than the girl's white face and haunted eyes.
"He'd tell to keep me from being your wife, but if I were your wife he'd never tell. I know him; he'd suffer anything rather than do anything which would give me pain or bring me to shame; if I were your wife he'd never tell. You're a gentleman, Rodney, and I'm not a lady, and I don't suppose I ever shall be; I'm just a girl who has let you do what you like with her, and you're cleverer than I am--much, much cleverer; but, in this, do be advised by me--do, dear, do! There is something here, something which makes me sure that the only way out of it, for you, is for you to make me your wife. I know you don't want to do it, that you never meant to do it, and I can quite understand why; but you'd better have me for your wife than--than that; don't you see, dear, that you had? I shan't be able to tell, and George Dale won't, and no one else knows, and instead of trying to find out more he'll keep others from finding out anything; he'll be on your side instead of against you, for my sake. Rodney, I implore you--for your own sake, dear, your own sake!--to do as you promised, and marry me."
She pleaded to be allowed to save his life as if she were pleading for her own life. He turned to shake the ash from his pipe into the fender, and so remained, for some moments, with his back to her; while her eyes looked as if they were crying out to him. When he turned to her again he was pressing the tobacco down into his pipe before restoring it to his lips, smiling as he looked at her.