She could not find a word. When he went on his tone was lower.
“I’m rather a lonely man,” he said. “You didn’t know that, or think it? But it is true. And such an hour as we have spent to-day is not mine often. It lies with you to say if I am going to have more of them. I might tell you with truth that I haven’t much to offer my wife. That if I am Audley of Beaudelays, I am the poorest Audley that ever was. That my wife will be no great lady, and will step into no golden shoes. The butterflies are moths, Mary, nowadays, and if I am ever to be much she will have to help me. But I will tell no lies, my dear!” He turned to her then and stopped; and perforce, though her knees trembled, she had to stand also, and face him as he looked down at her. “I am not going to pretend that what I have to offer isn’t enough. For you are lonely like me; you have no one but John Audley to look to, and I am big enough and strong enough to take care of you. And I will take care of you—if you will let me. If you will say the word, Mary?”
He loomed above her in the darkness. He seemed already to possess her. She tried to think, tried to ask herself if she loved him, if she loved him enough; but the fancy for him which she had had from the beginning, that and his masterfulness swept her irresistibly towards him. She was lonely—more lonely than ever of late, and to whom was she to look? Who else had been as good to her, as kind to her, as thoughtful for her, as he who now wooed her so honestly, who offered her all he had to offer? She hesitated, and he saw that she hesitated.
“Come, we’ve got to have this out,” he said bluntly. And he put his hand on her shoulder. “We stand alone, both of us, you and I. We’re the last of the old line, and I want you for my wife, Mary! With you I can do something, with you I believe that I can make something of my life! Without you—but there, if you say no, I won’t take it! I won’t take it, and I am going to have you, if not to-day, to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the next day! Make no mistake about that!”
She tried to fence with him. “I have not a penny,” she faltered.
“I don’t ask you for a penny.”
Her instinct was still to escape. “You are Lord Audley,” she said, “and I am a poor relation. Won’t you—don’t you think that you will repent presently!”
“That’s my business! If that be all—if there’s no one else——”
“No, there’s no one else,” she admitted. “But——”
“But be hanged!” he cried. “If there’s no one else you are mine.” And he passed his arm round her.