“By marriage.”
Alford looked dazed. “Do you mean Mrs. Yarrow?”
“If that’s her name, and she’s a widow.”
“And do you think it would be the fair thing for a man on the verge of insanity—a physical and mental wreck—to ask a woman to marry him?”
“In your case, yes. In the first place, you’re not so bad as all that. You need nothing but rest for your body and change for your mind. I believe you’ll get rid of your illusions as soon as you form the habit of speaking of them promptly when they begin to trouble you. You ought to speak of them to some one. You can’t always have me around, and Mrs. Yarrow would be the next best thing.”
“She’s rich, and you know what I am. I’ll have to borrow the money to rest on, I’m so poor.”
“Not if you marry it.”
Alford rose, somewhat more vigorously than he had sat down. But that day he did not go beyond ascertaining that Mrs. Yarrow was in town. He found out the fact from the maid at her door, who said that she was nearly always at home after dinner, and, without waiting for the evening of another day, Alford went to call upon her.
She said, coming down to him in a rather old-fashioned, impersonal drawing-room which looked distinctly as if it had been left to her: “I was so glad to get your card. When did you leave Woodbeach?”
“Mrs. Yarrow,” he returned, as if that were the answer, “I think I owe you an explanation.”