"I must say so now, then, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, withdrawing the hand he had taken; "I did not mean or wish you to think so, but I was too ill to speak almost to know what I did. It was not my fault."
"You do not make it mine, that I chose such a time, selfishly, I grant, to draw from your lips the words that are more to me than life?"
"Cannot you be generous ?" for once, she was very near saying.
"Where you are concerned, I do not know how."
Fleda was silent a moment, and then bowed her face in her hands.
"May I not ask that question of you?" said he, bending down and endeavouring to remove them; "will you not say or look that word that will make others happy beside me?"
"I cannot, Sir."
"Not for their sakes?" he said, calmly.
"Can you ask me to do for theirs, what I would not for my own?"
"Yes for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.