"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, I thank God there is not! My dear uncle has been dead for four years, and there has never been any one else who cared since Father died."
He looked at her, a great light beginning to come into his face; but she did not understand and turned her head to hide the tears.
"Then I am going to tell you something," he said, his tone growing lower, yet clear enough for her to hear every word distinctly.
A tall, oldish girl with a discontented upper lip stalked through the hall, glanced in at the door, and sniffed significantly, but they did not see her. A short, baggy-coated man outside hovered anxiously around the building and passed the very window of that room, but the shade opposite them was down, and they did not know. The low, pleasant voice went on: "I have come to care a great deal for you since I first saw you, and I want you to give me the right to care for you always and protect you against the whole world."
She looked up, wondering.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I love you, and I want to make you my wife. Then I can defy the whole world if need be, and put you where you ought to be."
"Oh!" she breathed softly.
"Wait, please," he pleaded, laying his hand gently on her little, trembling one. "Don't say anything until I have finished. I know of course that this will be startling to you. You have been brought up to feel that such things must be more carefully and deliberately done. I do not want you to feel that this is the only way I can help you, either. If you are not willing to be my wife, I will find some other plan. But this is the best way, if it isn't too hard on you, for I love you as I never dreamed that I could love a woman. The only question is, whether you can put up with me until I can teach you to love me a little."
She lifted eloquent eyes to his face.
"Oh, it is not that," she stammered, a rosy light flooding cheek and brow. "It is not that at all. But you know nothing about me. If you knew, you would very likely think as others do, and----"
"Then do not tell me anything about yourself, if it will trouble you. I do not care what others think. If you have poisoned a husband, I should know that he needed poisoning, and any way I should love you and stand by you."