‘I cannot; it is too late.’
‘Yet you are so young, so beautiful; and I love you so much.’
‘I do not deserve such love.’
‘You deserve far more than I can bring you.’
‘Did Mr. White tell you what I had been? Do not turn away, but look me in the face—you see I am not afraid. What did he say to you? Tell me everything.’
‘He told me that you had been deceived by a villain, who afterwards abandoned you. Dearest, he did you full justice—he knew that you were innocent, an angel deluded by a devil.’
‘I was not innocent,’ returned Madeline, sadly. ‘I was to blame, and ah! I was so ungrateful. If I had been innocent, do you think I should ever have placed myself in that man’s power?’
‘You were very young, and it is an evil world. Do not speak of it again. Bury the past, and become my honoured wife.’
‘You say that now; but some day, years hence, perhaps, the past would rise like a ghost, and your life would be darkened by regret and shame.’
‘Never by shame! never!’