To ask you to marry me--" He broke off.
"You realise that I could not; that I should have been deemed a fortune-hunter, not only by the world, which matters nothing, but perhaps by yourself, who matter everything.

I--I--" he faltered, fumbling for words to express thoughts of an overwhelming intricacy.

"It was not perhaps that so much as the thought that, if my suit should come to prosper, men would say you had thrown yourself away on a fortune-hunter.

To myself I should have accounted the reproach well earned, but it seemed to me that it must contain something slighting to you, and to shield you from all slights must be the first concern of my deep worship for you.

That," he ended fiercely, "is why I am so angry, so desperate at the slight you have put upon yourself for my sake--for me, who would have sacrificed life and honour and everything I hold of any account, to keep you up there, enthroned not only in my own eyes, but in the eyes of every man." He paused, and looked at her and she at him.