Nor did she offer him her hand.
'Here I am,' said he.
'Yes,' she replied; and then, without a pause or any change
of voice, 'I want you to take me away,' she added.
'Away?' he repeated. 'How? Where?'
'To-day,' she said. 'I do not care where it is, but I want
you to take me away.'
'For how long? I do not understand,' gasped Dick.
'I shall never come back here any more,' was all she
answered.
Wild words uttered, as these were, with perfect quiet of
manner and voice, exercise a double influence on the hearer's
mind. Dick was confounded; he recovered from astonishment
only to fall into doubt and alarm. He looked upon her frozen
attitude, so discouraging for a lover to behold, and recoiled
from the thoughts which it suggested.
'To me?' he asked. 'Are you coming to me, Esther?'
'I want you to take me away,' she repeated with weary
impatience. 'Take me away - take me away from here.'
The situation was not sufficiently defined. Dick asked
himself with concern whether she were altogether in her right
wits. To take her away, to marry her, to work off his hands
for her support, Dick was content to do all this; yet he
required some show of love upon her part. He was not one of
those tough-hided and small-hearted males who would marry
their love at the point of the bayonet rather than not marry
her at all. He desired that a woman should come to his arms
with an attractive willingness, if not with ardour.
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