Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/170

160 "You know the woman I should like to marry?"

"I know her?" she said, interrogatively, blushing deeply.

"It is you, Annette—you whom I have loved better than my duty. I forsook everything for you."

Mr Lyon paused: he was about to do what he felt would be ignoble—to urge what seemed like a claim.

"Can you love me, Annette? Will you be my wife?"

Annette trembled and looked miserable.

"Do not speak—forget it," said Mr Lyon, rising suddenly and speaking with loud energy. "No, no—I do not want it—I do not wish it."

The baby awoke as he started up; he gave the child into Annette's arms, and left her.

His work took him away early the next morning and the next again. They did not need to speak much to each other. The third day Mr Lyon was too ill to go to work. His frame had been over-wrought; he had been too poor to have sufficiently nourishing food, and under the shattering of his long-deferred hope his health had given way. They had no regular servant—only occasional help from an old woman, who lit the fires and put on the kettles. Annette was forced to be the sick-nurse,