Page:What will he do with it.djvu/772

762 you, Sir. God bless you! All is over. I was the blindest fool—she refuses me!"

"Refuses you!—impossible! For what reason?"

"She cannot love me well enough to marry," answered Lionel, with a quivering lip, and an attempt at that irony in which all extreme anguish, at least in our haughty sex, delights to seek refuge or disguise. "Likes me as a friend, a brother, and so forth, but nothing more. All a mistake, Sir—all, except your marvelous kindness to me—to her—for which Heaven ever bless you!"

"Yes, all a mistake of your own, foolish boy," said Darrell, tenderly; and, turning sharp, he saw Sophy hastening by, quickly and firmly, with her eyes looking straightward—on into space. He threw himself into her path.

"Tell this dull kinsman of mine that 'faint heart never 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 gray 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 honor"—"Grateful"—"Some one more worthy"—etc., etc.

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 faith which is pledged with his own?"

"Yes," said Lionel, who had gained the side of his kinsman; "yes, that is it. Oh 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!—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