Then she swung on her father. "Why do you
speak to him--to _him_--like this?--Stafford, you will yield--"
"In everything, in every way, but this," he said, with the same ominous
quietude. "If you are content to drop the title, to share the life of a
poor and an ordinary working-man--as I hope to be--"
He held out his hand, and she would have taken it, clung to it, but her
father strode between them, and with a harsh laugh, exclaimed:
"You fool! Don't you see that he is wanting to get rid of you, that he
is only too glad of the excuse? Great God! have you no touch of
womanliness in you, no sense of shame--"
She swept him aside with a gesture, and advancing to Stafford, looked
straight into his eyes.
"Is--is it true?" she asked hoarsely. "Tell me! Is what he says true?
That--that rather than marry me you would go out into the world
penniless, to earn your living--you? Answer! Do--do you love me?"
His eyes dropped, his teeth clenched, and the moment of silence hung
heavy in the room. She turned from him, her hand going to her brow with
a gesture of weariness and despair.
"Let us go," she said to her father.
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