“There!” said he. “I knew it all the time.”
“Was there another question?” I asked.
“Why, yes,” he said. “Why, yes. I believe I did have another. Now, what was it? I had another question. It was awkward, too, if I remember. I had another.”
We both laughed then.
“Yet it seems so strange for me to ask these questions now, doesn’t it?” he went on, fingering the pages of a book on the desk. “It is so early and a good deal more natural for you to speak to me than for me to speak to you. But, good God! there is a reason if you only knew—a reason. Let us say, for instance, that I might not be here then.”
“Ask it, sir,” I said.
“Why, I was only going to say that, in case you should succeed,—I doubt if you do succeed,—but in case you should succeed in causing her to love you, there would be no withdrawal on your part. Little Julie—my little daughter! Neither of you has known what it means yet. And, Estabrook, when she does, it must not go wrong. I know her well. She will never love but one man. He must not withdraw when he has won her!”
I started to speak angrily.
“Wait!” he cried, with his hands clenched. “He must not be shaken from her by anything—anything for which she is not to blame herself—no matter how strange or terrible—anything. Nothing will come. I know it. But that must be promised me—to stand by her, no matter what misfortune might descend upon her.”
“What could?” I asked in a trembling voice.