Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/404

 won fair lady.' You do not mean seriously, deliberately to reject a heart that will never be faint with a meaner fear than that of losing you?"

Poor Sophy! She kept her blue eyes still on the cold grey space, and answered by some scarce audible words--words which in every age girls intending to say No seem to learn as birds learn their song; no one knows who taught them, but they are ever to the same tune. "Sensible of the honour"--"Grateful"--"Some one more worthy," &c., &c.

Darrell checked this embarrassed jargon. "My question, young lady, is solemn; it involves the destiny of two lives. Do you mean to say that you do not love Lionel Haughton well enough to give him your hand, and return the true faith which is pledged with his own?"

"Yes," said Lionel, who had gained the side of his kinsman, "yes, that is it. O Sophy--Ay or No?"

"No!" fell from her pale, firm lips--and in a moment more she was at Waife's side, and had drawn him away from George. "Grandfather, grandfather!--home, home; let us go home at once, or I shall die!"

Darrell has kept his keen sight upon her movements--upon her countenance. He sees her gesture--her look--as she now clings to her grandfather. The blue eyes are not now coldly fixed on level air, but raised upward as for strength from above. The young face is sublime with its woe, and with its resolve.

"Noble child," muttered Darrell, "I think I see into her heart. If so, poor Lionel, indeed! My pride has yielded, hers never will!"

Lionel, meanwhile, kept beating his foot on the ground, and checking indignantly the tears that sought to gather to his eyes. Darrell threw his arm round the young man's shoulder, and led him gently, slowly away, by the barbed thorn-tree-on by the moss-grown crags.

Waife, meanwhile, is bending his ear to Sophy's lip. The detestable Fairthorn emerges from between the buttresses, and shambles up to George, thirsting to hear his hopes confirmed, and turning his face back to smile congratulation, on the gloomy old house that he thinks he has saved from the lake.

Sophy has at last convinced Waife that his senses do not deceive him, nor hers wander. She has said, "O grandfather,