uld speak, but
about her happiness."

"Just so; I don't think she would be happy with you."

"Then it is to save her from me that you are marrying her,--so that
she may not sink into the abyss of my unworthiness."

"Partly that."

"But if I had come two days since, when she would have received me
with open arms--"

"You have no right to make such a statement."

"I ask yourself whether it is not true? She would have received me
with open arms, and would you then have dared, as her guardian, to
bid her refuse the offer made to her, when you had learned, as you
would have done, that she loved me; that I had loved her with all
my heart before I left England; that I had left it with the view of
enabling myself to marry her; that I had been wonderfully successful;
that I had come back with no other hope in the world than that of
giving it all to her; that I had been able to show you my whole life,
so that no girl need be afraid to become my wife--"

"What do I know about your life? You may have another wife living at
this moment."

"No doubt; I may be guilty of any amount of villainy, but then, as
her friend, you should make inquiry. You would not break a girl's
heart because the man to whom she is attached may possibly be a
rogue. In this case you have no ground for the suspicion."

"I never heard of a man who spoke of himself so grandiloquently!"

"But there is ample reason why you should make inquiry. In truth, as
I said before, it is her happiness and not mine nor your own that you
should look to. If she has taken your offer because you had been good
to her in her desolation,--because she had found herself unable to
refuse aught to one who had treated her so well; if she had done
all this, believing that I had disappeared from her knowledge, and
doubting altogether my return; if it be so--and you know that it is
so--then you should hesitate before you lead her to her doom."

"You heard her say that I was not to believe any of these things
unless I got them from her own mouth?"

"I did; and her word should go for nothing either with you or with
me. She has promised, and is willing to sacrifice herself to her
promise. She will sacrifice me too because of your goodness,--and
because she is utterly unable to put a fair value upon herself. To me
she is all the world. From the first hour in which I saw her to the
present, the idea of gaining her has been everything. Put aside the
words which she just spoke, what