“No-o, papa.”

“And you don’t like any one else better?”

“Papa, you know I don’t.”

“My own spotless darling!  And you will let Sir Everard love you, and be your true and tender husband?”

“Oh, papa, don’t!”

She flung herself down with a vehement cry.  But Sir Everard turned his radiant, hopeful, impassioned face upon the Indian officer.

“For God’s sake, plead my cause, sir!  She will listen to you.  I love her with all my heart and soul.  I will be miserable for life without her.”

“You hear, Harrie?  This vehement young wooer—­make him happy.  Make me happy by saying ‘Yes.’”

She looked up with the wild glance of a stag at bay.  For one moment her frantic idea was flight.

“My love—­my life!” Sir Everard caught both her hands across the bed, and his voice was hoarse with its concentrated emotion.  “You don’t know how I love you.  If you refuse I shall go mad.  I will be the truest, the tenderest husband ever man was to woman.”

“I am dying, Harrie,” her father said, sadly, “and you will be all alone in this big, bad world.  But if your heart says ‘No,’ my own best beloved, to my old friend’s son, then never hesitate to refuse.  In all my life I never thwarted you.  On my death-bed I will not begin.”

“What shall I do?” she cried.  “What shall I do?”

“Consent!” her lover whispered.

“Consent!” Her father’s anxious eyes spoke the word eloquently.

She looked from one to the other—­the dying father, the handsome, hopeful, impetuous young lover.  Some faint thrill in her heart answered his.  Girls like daring lovers.

She drew her hands out of his clasp, hesitated a moment, while that lovely, sensitive blush came and went, then gave them suddenly back of her own accord.

He grasped them tight, with an inarticulate cry of ecstasy.  For worlds he could not have spoken.  The dying face looked unutterably relieved.

“That means ‘Yes,’ Harrie?”

“Yes, papa.”

“Thank God!”

He joined their hands, looking earnestly at the young man.

“She is yours, Kingsland.  May God deal with you, as you deal with my orphan child!”

“Amen!”

Solemnly Sir Everard Kingsland pronounced his own condemnation with the word.  Awfully came back the memory of that adjuration in the terrible days to come.

“She is very young,” said Captain Hunsden, after a pause—­“too young to marry.  You must wait a year.”

“A year!”

Sir Everard repeated the word in consternation, as if it had been a century.

“Yes,” said the captain, firmly.  “A year is not too long, and she will only be eighteen then.  Let her return to her old pension in Paris.  She sadly needs the help of a finishing school, my poor little girl!  My will is made.  The little I leave will suffice for her wants.  Mr. Green is her guardian—­he understands my wishes.  Oh, my lad! you will be very good to my friendless little Harrie!  She will have but you in the wide world.”