Then I came to live here and I have
learnt to love you, heaven only knows how much, and I should be
ashamed to try to put it into words, for they would sound foolish. All
my life is wrapped up in you, and I feel as though, should you see me
no more, I could never be a happy man again," and he paused and looked
anxiously at her face, which was set and drawn as though with pain.
"I cannot say 'yes,' Colonel Quaritch," she answered at length, in a
tone that puzzled him, it was so tender and so unfitted to the words.
"I suppose," he stammered, "I suppose that you do not care for me? Of
course, I have no right to expect that you would."
"As I have said that I cannot say 'yes,' Colonel Quaritch, do you not
think that I had better leave that question unanswered?" she replied
in the same soft notes which seemed to draw the heart out of him.
"I do not understand," he went on. "Why?"
"Why?" she broke in with a bitter little laugh, "shall I tell you why?
Because I am /in pawn!/ Look," she went on, pointing to the stately
towers and the broad lands beyond. "You see this place. /I/ am
security for it, I /myself/ in my own person. Had it not been for me
it would have been sold over our heads after having descended in our
family for all these centuries, put upon the market and sold for what
it would fetch, and my old father would have been turned out to die,
for it would have killed him.
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