"Mary. I want to help you. But I can only do so if you give me the
_right_ to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I
have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only
too ready to do that--people related to you by blood and by law."
I knew what he was coming to, for his voice was quivering in my ears
like the string of a bow.
"There is only one sort of right, Mary, that is above the right of
blood, and you know what that is."
My eyes were growing so dim that I could hardly see the face which was
so close to mine.
"Mary," he said, "I have always cared for you. Surely you know that. By
the saints of God I swear there has never been any other girl for me,
and now there never will he. Perhaps I ought to have told you this
before, and I wanted to do so when I met you in Rome. But it didn't
seem fair, and I couldn't bring myself to do it."
His passionate voice was breaking; I thought my heart was breaking also.
"All I could do I did, but it came to nothing; and now you are here and
you are unhappy, and though it is so late I want to help you, to rescue
you, to drag you out of this horrible situation before I go away.
Pages:
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566