"What I have
done was not done for them, but for you." He waited a little, and looked
at her. His face would have betrayed him in that look, his voice would
have betrayed him in the next words he spoke, if she had not guessed
the truth already. "When your friends come here," he resumed, "they will
take you away, I suppose, to some better place than this."
"They can take me to no place," she said, gently, "which I shall think
of as I think of the place where you found me. They can take me to no
dearer friend than the friend who saved my life."
There was a moment's silence between them.
"We have been very happy here," he went on, in lower and lower tones.
"You won't forget me when we have said good-by?"
She turned pale as the words passed his lips, and, leaving her chair,
knelt down at the table, so as to look up into his face, and to force
him to look into hers.
"Why do you talk of it?" she asked. "We are not going to say good-by, at
least not yet."
"I thought--" he began.
"Yes?"
"I thought your friends were coming here--"
She eagerly interrupted him. "Do you think I would go away with
anybody," she said, "even with the dearest relation I have in the world,
and leave you here, not knowing and not caring whether I ever saw
you again? Oh, you don't think that of me!" she exclaimed, with the
passionate tears springing into her eyes-"I'm sure you don't think that
of me!"
"No," he said; "I never have thought, I never can think, unjustly or
unworthily of you.
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