“Oh, you make it so _hard_ for me!” she said, gently. “I knew you were not a happy man. I saw the shadow of spiritual death in your countenance the day I met you at Dearing's. Yes, the child is yours, as well as he is mine. God has made him a part of you, as he is a part of me. And he loves you, Kenneth, he loves you--and admires you above all men. Young as he is, it would actually pain him to be separated from you. And you are asking me to be your wife!” She shrugged her shoulders, her proud lip quivered, and she looked away. “You are asking me, and _now!_”
“Yes, Dora, to be my wife before the world, as you have been in God's sight all these years. I am willing to crawl in the dust at your feet. You are far above me. You were that when I blindly deserted you, and I can never be worthy of your forgiveness, but I would die for a chance to serve you.”
“How sad it all is!” she sighed, her glance on the ground. “What a mere blown-about straw I have been! What a grim thing for a proud woman to decide! You deserted me once to save a paltry sum of money--a worldly ambition; you want me back to _save your soul_--that expresses it, Kenneth. But I can't consent. I am simply human--and a woman. My pride won't let me--the pride that every woman has who holds herself erect. You sold yourself once, and you are now asking me to do the same. Your price was a successful railroad and the plaudits of a few people--the price paid to me would be the future welfare of my child. I am expected to salve the wounds of a torn and mangled womanhood with the realization that I am providing for my boy. There is no pain keener than the fear that one's offspring may suffer what we ourselves have been through, and I'd give my soul to see Lionel happy in the time to come, but I can't bring it about in the way you ask. I simply can't! I loved you, Kenneth, before that unspeakable cloud fell between us, but I was only a girl then, and during all the years that have passed since I have given you no place at all in my heart. We are, in fact, meeting to-day as strangers.”
“I know. I know it is true so far as it touches _you_,” he said, with a deep sigh, “for your love died with your respect for me, but my love has never died, Dora. I smothered it for a time, in my mad ambition, but there was no act of yours to weaken it, and so it lived and grew till it has overpowered me. I love you now, strange as it may sound to you, ten thousand times more than I ever did. You may turn from me with a shudder and as a thing to be loathed; but I shall never cease to watch over you and strive to protect you.”