“Yes, I will save him—on one condition. Of late, Mary, I have noticed that you have avoided me—that—that you somehow appear to shun me in suspicion and mistrust. You doubt my good intentions towards you and your family. But I will give proof of them if you will only allow me.”
She felt his hot breath upon her cheek, and trembled.
“Save my father from the hands of these unscrupulous office-seekers,” she panted. “His honour—his very life is to-day at stake.”
“Upon two conditions, Mary,” was his low, quiet answer, still holding her hand firmly in his. “That he gives his consent to our marriage, and that you are willing to become my wife.”
“Your wife!” she gasped, drawing her hand away, starting back, and looking blankly at him with her magnificent eyes. “Your wife!”
“Yes. I love you, Mary,” he cried passionately, taking her hand again, “I love you. You must have seen how for months past I have lived for you alone, yet I dared not, until to-day, reveal the truth. Say one word—only say that you will be mine—and your father shall crush those who intend to wreck and ruin him.”
“You—then you make marriage the price of my father’s triumph?” she faltered hoarsely, as the ghastly truth gradually dawned upon her.
“Yes,” he cried, raising her inert hand to his hot lips. “Because I love you, Mary!—because I cannot live without you! Be mine. Speak the word, and I will reveal the truth and save your father from ruin.”
But, realising the cleverly laid trap into which she had fallen, she stood silent and rigid, her eyes fixed upon him in an agony of blank, unutterable despair.