'Then you will grant me an allowance for my father?'

He laughed. 'A thousand pounds is what you have cost me. When that thousand pounds is made up, or repaid, then we will talk about an allowance. Not till then—no, no! I may pay too dear for my bargain. A thousand pounds is ample.'

'That is your last word?'

'My last.'

Then Honor, looking steadily at him, said: 'Mr. Langford, it is true that you lose money by me; but I lose what is infinitely more precious by you. I lose my whole life's happiness. When my mother was dying, I promised her to be a mother to her darlings. Now I am put in this terrible position, that, to save them from a great disgrace and an indelible stain, I must leave them. I have spent the whole night thinking out what was right for me to do. If I remain with them, it is with a shame over our whole family. If I go, I save them from that, but they lose my care. One way or other there is something gone. It cannot be other. I have made my choice. I will come to you; but I have strings from my heart to little Temperance, and Charity, and Martha, and Willie, and Pattie, and Joe, and Kate, and father. If they are unhappy, uncomfortable, I shall suffer in my soul. If ill comes to them, I shall be in pain. If the little ones grow up neglected, untidy, untruthful, my heart and my head will ache night and day. If my father is uncared for, the distress of knowing it will be on me ever. I shall be drawn by a hundred nerves to my own dear ones, and not be able to do anything for them. You cannot understand me. You must believe me when I say that the loss to me is ten thousand times greater than the loss of a thousand pounds to you. My happiness is in the well-being and well-bringing up of my brothers and sisters. You take all that away from me. Did you ever hear the tale of the widower who married again, and his new wife neglected the children by the dead wife?—One night the father came to the nursery door, and saw the dead woman rocking and soothing the babes. She had come from her grave. The crying had drawn her. She could not sleep because they called her. I do not know that I can bear it, to be separated from my brothers and sisters—I cannot say—if they suffered or were neglected—I fancy nothing could withhold me from going to them.'

Taverner remained silent: her eyes seemed to burn their way into him. She shifted her position from one foot to the other; and went on, in an earnest tone, with a vibration in it from the strength of her emotion: 'I am bound to tell you all. If you are to be my husband, you must know everything. I cannot love you. What love I have that is not taken up by Temperance, and Charity, and Martha, and Willie, and Pattie, and Joe, and Kate, and father, and——' still looking frankly, earnestly at him, 'yes, and by Charles, I have given elsewhere. I cannot help it. It has been taken from me in a whirlwind of fire, as Elijah was caught up into heaven; it is gone from me; I cannot call it down again. If you insist on knowing to whom I gave it, I will tell you, but not now, not yet—afterwards. To show you, Mr. Langford, how I love my home, I had made up my mind to give him up, to throw away all that beautiful happiness, to forget it as one forgets a dream, because I would not be parted from my dear ones. I was resolved to give him up whom I love for them, and now I am required to give them up for you whom I love not.' She breathed heavily, her labouring heart beat. She drew the red cloak about her, lest the heaving bosom and bounding heart should be noticed. Langford saw the long drops run down her brow, but there were no tears in her eyes.

'You will never love me?' he asked.

'I cannot say; it depends how you treat my dear ones.'

She took a long breath.

'There is one reason why my consent costs me more when given to you than to another; but I cannot tell you that now. I will tell you later.'