I know how little I can do, how little I can offer.

To fetter you by a word would be base and selfish; but, oh, Mercy, till life brings you something better than my love, let me love you, if it is only till to-morrow!" Mercy listened to each syllable Stephen spoke, as one in a wilderness, flying for his life from pursuers, would listen to every sound which could give the faintest indications which way safety might lie.

If she had listened dispassionately to such words, spoken to any other woman, her native honesty of soul would have repelled them as unfair.

But every instinct of her nature except the one tender instinct of loving was disarmed and blinded,--disarmed by her affection for Stephen, and blinded by her profound sympathy for his suffering.
She fixed her eyes on him as intently as if she would read the very thoughts of his heart.
"Do you understand me, Mercy ?" he said.
"I think I do," she replied in a whisper.
"If you do not now, you will as time goes on," he continued.

"I have not a thought I am unwilling for you to know; but there are thoughts which it would be wrong for me to put into words.