She turned to him with suppressed passion.
"Why did you leave me?" came painfully from her white lips.
His face grew red and his eyes fell before hers for a moment. At times
his sacrifice of her to his father's need had seemed not only
inexcusable, but shameful; the shame of it now weighed upon him.
"Ida, for God's sake listen to me!" for, as he had hesitated, she had
turned from him with a gesture of repudiation. "Listen to me! There was
nothing else for me to do; fate left me no alternative. My father--Ida,
how can I tell you!--my father's good name, his reputation, were in my
hands. He had done so much for me--everything! There has never been a
father like him: my happiness stood between him and ruin--ah, not mine
alone, but yours--and I sacrificed them! If you knew all you would
forgive me the wrong I did, great as it was. I think now, if the time
were to come over again, that--yes, I should have to do it!" he broke
out. "I could not have stood by and seen-him ruined and disgraced
without stretching out my hand to save him."
"It was for your father's sake?" she said, almost inaudibly.
"Yes," he responded, grimly. "And it saved him--saved his good name, at
any rate. The rest went--you have heard?"
She made a gesture of assent. He drew a long breath, and held out his
hand to her.
"Can you not forgive me, Ida? If you knew what the sacrifice cost me,
how much I have suffered. She here, dearest"--he drew still closer to
her--"let the past go. It shall, I swear! There is a limit to a man's
endurance, and I have passed it. I love you, Ida, I want you! Come back
with me and let us live for each other, live for love. Dearest, I will
teach you to forget the wrong I did you. It's very little I have to
offer you, a share in the hard life of a farmer out there in the wilds;
but if you were still the mistress of Herondale, instead of poor--"
Half unconsciously she broke in upon his prayer.
"I am still--what I was. I am not poor. My father was a rich man when
he died."
Stafford regarded her with surprise, then he moved his hand, as if he
were waving away the suggestion of an obstacle.
"I am glad--for your sake, dearest; though for my own I would almost
rather that you were as poor as I thought you; that I might work for
you. Why do you stand and look at me so hopelessly. What else is there
to divide us, dearest?"