"I cannot help what he expects," said Fleda, in some distress.
"What have you engaged yourself to, my child?"
"Nothing in the world, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, earnestly "nothing in the world. I haven't engaged myself to anything. The promise was made freely, without any sort of stipulation."
Mr. Rossitur looked thoughtful and disquieted. Fleda's tears were pouring again.
"I will not trust him," he said; "I will not stay in the country!"
"But you will come home, uncle?" said Fleda, terrified.
"Yes, my dear child yes, my dear child!" he said, tenderly, putting his arms round Fleda again, and kissing, with an earnestness of acknowledgment that went to her heart, her lips and brow; "you shall do what you will with me; and when I go, we will all go together."
From Queechy? from America? But she had no time for that thought now.
"You said, 'for Hugh's sake,' " Mr. Rossitur observed, after a pause, and with some apparent difficulty; "what of him?"
"He is not well, uncle Rolf," said Fleda; "and I think the best medicine will be the sight of you again."
Mr. Rossitur looked pale, and was silent a moment.
His face, and the thought of those faces at home, were too much for Fleda; she could not help it. "Oh, uncle Rolf," she said, hiding her face, "they only want to see you again now!"
Mr. Rossitur leaned his head in his hands and groaned; and Fleda could but cry; she felt there was nothing to say.
"It was for Marion," he said at length; "it was when I was hard pressed, and I was fearful if it were known that it might ruin her prospects. I wanted that miserable sum only four thousand dollars that fellow Schwiden asked to borrow it of me for a few days, and to refuse would have been to confess all. I dared not try my credit, and I just madly took that step that proved irretrievable. I counted at the moment upon funds that were coming to me only the next week sure, I thought, as possible but the man cheated me, and our embarrassments thickened from that time; that thing has been a weight oh, a weight of deadening power! round my neck ever since. I have died a living death these six years!"
"I know it, dear uncle I know it all!" said Fleda, bringing the sympathizing touch of her cheek to his again. "The good that it did has been unspeakably overbalanced by the evil. Even long ago I knew that."