We walked every day together for weeks and weeks, and he
was so different from Sol, so bright and pleasant, and he loved me from
the first, he said. He told me, too, that you had listened with favor to
his suit, or, at all events, had not refused to listen--that there was
good hope of your consenting to it, and without that hope he knew he
could not win me. I only promised to be his on that condition. Speak to
me, father; pardon me, father! Don't look at me so. He never meant to
thieve, I am sure of that. You asked of him some warrant of his wealth,
some proof that he could afford to marry me. You would not have done
that had you set your face utterly against him. And I think--I
fear--though Heaven is my witness that I knew nothing of it until now,
that he took this money only to bring it back to you again, and win your
favor. It was an ill deed, if he has really done it, which even yet I do
not credit; but it was done for my sake; then for _my_ sake, father,
pity him, pardon him!" She had thrown herself upon her knees beside the
old man's chair; her long hair had come unfastened, and trailed upon the
sanded floor; her hands were clasped in an agony of supplication. No
pictured Magdalen ever looked more wretched or more beautiful.
"You have more to tell?" said the old man, harshly.
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