'I take the interest of a friend,' Mr. Dallas went on. 'I have a right to so much. I have watched her growing up. She will be something uncommon, you know. She ought really to have everything that can help to make humanity perfect.'
'What would you have me do?' the colonel asked, half conscious and half impatient.
'I would give her all the advantages that a girl of her birth and breeding would have in the old country.'
'How is that possible, at Seaforth?'
'It is not possible at Seaforth. There is nothing here. But elsewhere it is possible.'
'I shall never leave Seaforth,' said the colonel doggedly.
'But for Esther's sake? Why, she ought to be at school now, colonel.'
'I shall never quit Seaforth,' the other repeated. 'I do not expect to live long anywhere; when I die, I will lie by my wife's side, here.'
'You are not failing in health,' Mr. Dallas persisted. 'You are improving, colonel; every time I come to see you I am convinced of it. We shall have you a long while among us yet; you may depend on it.'
'I have no particular reason to wish you may be right. And I see myself no signs that you are.'