“Ruth! you acknowledge we were happy once;—­there were circumstances which, if I could tell you them all in detail, would show you how, in my weak, convalescent state, I was almost passive in the hands of others.  Ah, Ruth!  I have not forgotten the tender nurse who soothed me in my delirium.  When I am feverish, I dream that I am again at Llan-dhu, in the little old bedchamber, and you, in white—­which you always wore then, you know—­flitting about me.”

The tears dropped, large and round from Ruth’s eyes—­she could not help it—­how could she?

“We were happy then,” continued he, gaining confidence from the sight of her melted mood, and recurring once more to the admission which he considered so much in his favour.  “Can such happiness never return?” Thus he went on, quickly, anxious to lay before her all he had to offer, before she should fully understand his meaning.

“If you would consent, Leonard should be always with you—­educated where and how you liked—­money to any amount you might choose to name should be secured to you and him—­if only, Ruth—­if only those happy days might return.”  Ruth spoke—­

“I said that I was happy, because I had asked God to protect and help me—­and I dared not tell a lie.  I was happy.  Oh! what is happiness or misery that we should talk about them now?”

Mr. Donne looked at her, as she uttered these words, to see if she was wandering in her mind, they seemed to him so utterly strange and incoherent.

“I dare not think of happiness—­I must not look forward to sorrow.  God did not put me here to consider either of these things.”

“My dear Ruth, compose yourself!  There is no hurry in answering the question I asked.”

“What was it?” said Ruth.

“I love you so, I cannot live without you.  I offer you my heart, my life—­I offer to place Leonard wherever you would have him placed.  I have the power and the means to advance him in any path of life you choose.  All who have shown kindness to you shall be rewarded by me, with a gratitude even surpassing your own.  If there is anything else I can do that you can suggest, I will do it.”  “Listen to me!” said Ruth, now that the idea of what he proposed had entered her mind.  “When I said that I was happy with you long ago, I was choked with shame as I said it.  And yet it may be a vain, false excuse that I make for myself.  I was very young; I did not know how such a life was against God’s pure and holy will—­at least, not as I know it now; and I tell you the truth—­all the days of my years since I have gone about with a stain on my hidden soul—­a stain which made me loathe myself, and envy those who stood spotless and undefiled; which made me shrink from my child—­from Mr. Benson, from his sister, from the innocent girls whom I teach—­nay, even I have cowered away from God Himself; and what I did wrong then, I did blindly to what I should do now if I listened to you.”