“Have you asked her to be your wife?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Does she care for you? De Winton, be honest with me. This is no time for squeamishness. Speak out to me as man to man. I feel towards this young girl as if she were my own child. I have known all along how it was with you. But how about her? Have I guessed right—does she love you?”
“God help me! God help us both!” And with this passionate cry Clide turned away and, hiding his face in his hands, let himself fall into a chair.
“God help you, my poor lad! And God forgive me!” muttered Sir Simon.
The accent of self-reproach in which the prayer was uttered smote Clide to the heart; it stirred all that was noble and unselfish within him, and in the midst of his overwhelming anguish bade him forget himself to comfort his friend.
“You have nothing to reproach yourself with; you acted like a true friend, like a father to me. You meant to make me the happiest of men, to give me a treasure that I never could be worthy of. God bless you for it!” He held out his hand, and grasped Sir Simon’s. “No, nobody is to blame; it is my own destiny that pursues me. I thought I had lived it down; but I was mistaken. I am never to live it down. I could bear it if it fell upon myself alone. I had grown used to it. But that it should fall upon her! What has she done to deserve it?… What do I not deserve for bringing this curse upon her?” He rose up with flashing eye, his whole frame quivering with passion—he struck out against the air with both arms, as if striving to burst some invisible, unendurable bond.
Sir Simon started back affrighted. Kind-hearted, easy-going Sir Simon had never experienced the overmastering force of passion, whether of anger or grief, love or joy; his was one of those natures that when the storm comes lie down and let it sweep over them. He was brought now for the first time in his life in contact with the spectacle of one who did not bend under the tempest, but rose up in frantic defiance, breasting and resisting it. He quailed before the sight; he could not make a sign or find a word to say. But the transient paroxysm of madness spent itself, and after a few minutes Clide said, hopelessly yet fiercely:
“Speak to me, why don’t you, Harness?” Emotion swept away his habitual tone of respect towards the man who might have been his father. “Help me to help her! What can I do to stand between her and this misery? I must see her before I go, and what in Heaven’s name shall I say to her?”