I left a child. I find a woman.'
The colour overspread her face. She made a gesture as if of
entreaty that he would say no more, and her face dropped upon her
hands.
They were both silent for a time; she weeping.
'I owe it to a heart so trusting, pure, and good,' said Walter,
'even to tear myself from it, though I rend my own. How dare I say it
is my sister's!'
She was weeping still.
'If you had been happy; surrounded as you should be by loving and
admiring friends, and by all that makes the station you were born to
enviable,' said Walter; 'and if you had called me brother, then, in
your affectionate remembrance of the past, I could have answered to
the name from my distant place, with no inward assurance that I
wronged your spotless truth by doing so. But here - and now!'
'Oh thank you, thank you, Walter! Forgive my having wronged you so
much. I had no one to advise me. I am quite alone.'
'Florence!' said Walter, passionately. 'I am hurried on to say,
what I thought, but a few moments ago, nothing could have forced from
my lips. If I had been prosperous; if I had any means or hope of being
one day able to restore you to a station near your own; I would have
told you that there was one name you might bestow upon - me - a right
above all others, to protect and cherish you - that I was worthy of in
nothing but the love and honour that I bore you, and in my whole heart
being yours.
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