She raised her eyes to mine bravely, but the tell-tale color was in her cheeks.
"And thou dost ask me that?" I cried. "Thou knowest as well as I why Dunraven did this."
She did not reply, but bent her head over the table, so that I could not see her face.
"To-morrow," I said, "will end my career, and I——"
She interrupted me eagerly.
"Thou wilt not die to-morrow; thy friends will save thee."
"My friends can do nothing," I replied slowly. "I am beyond man's help now. I would ask thee one question and only one. Wilt answer me?"
"I will try," she replied, without raising her bent head. One little hand lay on the table near me, and I had hard work to keep myself from striding forward and closing my own over it.
"I would not wish thee to marry one unworthy of thee," I said. "Thou art too sweet and beautiful to be tied to such a man as this; he would be a blight upon thy young life, that would grow and deepen as the years go by. Such a soul as thine should be mated with one congenial, a man that thou couldst love and trust."