"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.
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