Part 81 (1/2)
”Ah! grat.i.tude is but a cold word. Exchange it for another.”
”Another! What mean you, Sir?”
”Say your _love_. Give me but that, and I promise--I swear, by my hopes of happiness here and hereafter--that I shall not rest, till your father's pardon be obtained; or till I, by my unwelcome interference in his behalf, be sentenced to partake of his prison and punishment! O Marion Wade! have mercy upon me! I, not you, am the suppliant in this cause. Give me what I have asked; and command me as your slave!”
For some seconds Marion stood without making reply.
From the fervour of his appeal, and the silence with which it had been received, Scarthe was beginning to conceive a hope; and kept his eyes keenly bent upon the countenance of his suitor.
He could read nothing there. Not a thought was betrayed by those beautiful features--immovable as though chiselled out of stone.
When she at length spoke, her answer told him, that he had misinterpreted her silence.
”Captain Scarthe,” said she, ”you are a man of the world--one, as I have heard, skilled in the thoughts of our s.e.x--”
”You flatter me,” interrupted he, making an effort to recover his customary coolness. ”May I know why I am thus complimented?”
”I did not mean it in that sense. Only to say, that, knowing our nature as you do, you must be aware that what you ask is impossible? O, Sir!
woman cannot _give_ her heart. _That must be taken from her_.”
”And yours, Marion Wade?”
”Is not in my power to give. It has been surrendered already.”
”Surrendered!” cried Scarthe, with an angry emphasis on the word: for this was his first a.s.surance of a fact that had long formed the theme of his conjectures. ”Surrendered, you say?”
”'Tis too true. Stolen, if you will, but still surrendered! 'Tis broken now, and cannot be restored. O sir! you would not value it, if offered to you. Do not make that a condition. Accept instead what is still in my power to give--a grat.i.tude that shall know no end!”
For some seconds the discomfited sooer neither spoke nor moved. What he had heard appeared to have paralysed him. His lips were white, and drawn tightly over his teeth, with an expression of half-indignation-- half-chagrin.
Skilled as he certainly was in woman's heart, he had heard enough to convince him, that he could never win that of Marion Wade. Her declaration had been made in a tone too serious--too sober in its style--to leave him the vestige of a hope. Her heart had been surely surrendered. Strange she should say _stolen_! Stranger still she should declare it to be _broken_!
Both were points that might have suggested curious speculations; but at that moment Scarthe was not in the vein for indulging in idle hypotheses. He had formed the resolution to possess the hand, and the fortune, of Marion Wade. If she could not give her heart, she could give these--as compensation for the saving of her father's life.
”Your grat.i.tude,” said he, no longer speaking in a strain of fervour, but with an air of piqued formality, ”your grat.i.tude, beautiful Marion, would go far with me. I would make much sacrifice to obtain it; but there is something you can bestow, which I should prize more.”
Marion looked--”What is it?”
”Your hand.”
”That then is the price of my father's life?”
”It is.”
”Captain Scarthe! what can my hand be worth to you, without--”
”Your heart, you would say? I must live in hopes to win that. Fair Marion, reflect! A woman's heart may be won more than once.”
”_Only once can it be lost_.”