“Ah no!” she answered quickly. “Is it likely he would? He calls himself a helpless log; and I know that the worst trouble of all is, that he thinks his helplessness divides him from me. Papa, I want you to go to him. I want you to tell him that we will be married very soon--as soon as it can be arranged--and that I will nurse him back to health. Tell him that we will stay happily together here, and have only one home, here at Penarvon. I know you do not want to lose me, yet I know (for you have told me) that you would like to see me Eustace’s wife. Well, it is all so easy. Do you not see it so yourself? Dearest father, I love him, and he loves me. What can anything else matter? Does not his weakness and his helplessness make me love him all the more? I want to have the right to be with him always, to lighten the load which will weigh on him, however brave and patient he is, heavily sometimes. I shall never love anybody else; and I think he will not either. Why should we wait? Why should we not have the happiness of belonging to one another before he is strong again as well as after? Why should those years be wasted for us both?” The Duke looked into her soft, unfathomable eyes, and he ceased to oppose her. “It shall be as you wish, my dear,” he said. “I believe had it been with me as it is with Eustace, your mother would have done just what you propose to do. God has His angels here below amongst us still. I will go and speak of this to Eustace, if you wish it. You are right, my child, in saying that I would fain see you married to Eustace, since you love each other. I had not thought of this way, but perhaps it is the best.” “You will come and tell me what he says,” answered Bride, with a lovely blush upon her face; and the Duke went slowly upstairs to the sick-room. Eustace was gaining vital power rapidly and most satisfactorily, and was not paralysed in the ordinary acceptation of the term; but he had received such violent blows in the spine, either from the force of the waves whilst he was tossed to and fro at their mercy, or by being dashed upon rocks--though there were few outward bruises or cuts--that the whole nervous power had been most seriously impaired, and he could neither raise himself in bed nor move any of his limbs, although sensation was not materially affected. It was a case likely to be tedious and trying rather than dangerous or hopeless. There was every prospect of an ultimate recovery; but great patience would be needed, and any premature attempts at exertion might lead to bad results. Eustace had heard his fate with resolute courage, and had breathed no word of repining since; but a gravity had settled down upon him which deepened rather than lessened day by day; and Bride had been quick to note this, and trace it to its source.