I asked your
sister to marry me--because I wanted her. But I will spoil no woman's
life. I will take nothing that does not belong to me. I shall set her
free."
He paused. Molly was looking at him expectantly. His face softened a
little under her eyes.
"As for you," he said, "I don't think you quite realize what you have
offered me--how much of yourself. It is no little thing, Molly. It is all
you have. A woman should not part with that lightly. Still, since you
have offered it to me, I cannot and do not throw it aside. If you are of
the same mind in six months from now, I shall take you at your word. But
you ought to marry for love, child--you ought to marry for love."
He held out his hand to her abruptly, and Molly, with a burning face,
gave him both her own.
"I can't think how I did it," she said, in a low voice. "But I--I am not
sorry."
"Thank you," said Lord Wyverton, and he stooped with an odd little smile,
and kissed first one and then the other of the hands he held.
* * * * *
No one, save Phyllis, knew of the contract made on that golden morning in
June on the edge of the flowering meadows; and even to Phyllis only the
bare outlines of the interview were vouchsafed.
That she was free, and that Lord Wyverton felt no bitterness over his
disappointment, he himself assured her. He uttered no word of reproach.
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