She turned her face away and gazed into the fire; but there was a sparkle in her eyes which was not caught from the leaping flames.
"Do you remember the first time that we met, Miss McIntyre?" he asked, standing on the rug and looking down at her dark hair, and the beautifully feminine curve of her ivory neck.
"As if it were yesterday," she answered in her sweet mellow tones.
"Then you must also remember the wild words that I said when we parted. It was very foolish of me. I am sure that I am most sorry if I frightened or disturbed you, but I have been a very solitary man for a long time, and I have dropped into a bad habit of thinking aloud. Your voice, your face, your manner, were all so like my ideal of a true woman, loving, faithful, and sympathetic, that I could not help wondering whether, if I were a poor man, I might ever hope to win the affection of such a one."
"Your good opinion, Mr. Raffles Haw, is very dear to me," said Laura. "I assure you that I was not frightened, and that there is no need to apologise for what was really a compliment."
"Since then I have found," he continued, "that all that I had read upon your face was true. That your mind is indeed that of the true woman, full of the noblest and sweetest qualities which human nature can aspire to. You know that I am a man of fortune, but I wish you to dismiss that consideration from your mind. Do you think from what you know of my character that you could be happy as my wife, Laura?"
She made no answer, but still sat with her head turned away and her sparkling eyes fixed upon the fire. One little foot from under her skirt tapped nervously upon the rug.
"It is only right that you should know a little more about me before you decide. There is, however, little to know. I am an orphan, and, as far as I know, without a relation upon earth. My father was a respectable man, a country surgeon in Wales, and he brought me up to his own profession. Before I had passed my examinations, however, he died and left me a small annuity. I had conceived a great liking for the subjects of chemistry and electricity, and instead of going on with my medical work I devoted myself entirely to these studies, and eventually built myself a laboratory where I could follow out my own researches. At about this time I came into a very large sum of money, so large as to make me feel that a vast responsibility rested upon me in the use which I made of it. After some thought I determined to build a large house in a quiet part of the country, not too far from a great centre. There I could be in touch with the world, and yet would have quiet and leisure to mature the schemes which were in my head. As it chanced, I chose Tamfield as my site. All that remains now is to carry out the plans which I have made, and to endeavour to lighten the earth of some of the misery and injustice which weigh it down. I again ask you, Laura, will you throw in your lot with mine, and help me in the life's work which lies before me?"
Laura looked up at him, at his stringy figure, his pale face, his keen, yet gentle eyes. Somehow as she looked there seemed to form itself beside him some shadow of Hector Spurling, the manly features, the clear, firm mouth, the frank manner. Now, in the very moment of her triumph, it sprang clearly up in her mind how at the hour of their ruin he had stood firmly by them, and had loved the penniless girl as tenderly as the heiress to fortune. That last embrace at the door, too, came back to her, and she felt his lips warm upon her own.
"I am very much honoured, Mr. Haw," she stammered, "but this is so sudden. I have not had time to think. I do not know what to say."
"Do not let me hurry you," he cried earnestly. "I beg that you will think well over it. I shall come again for my answer. When shall I come? Tonight?"
"Yes, come tonight."
"Then, adieu. Believe me that I think more highly of you for your hesitation. I shall live in hope." He raised her hand to his lips, and left her to her own thoughts.