He would have clasped her to him as he named her thus, but Mary struggled almost wildly to free herself, exclaiming, "Oh! plead not thus lest I forget my father in myself--my duty in love--the forgetfulness would be but short--I should be unhappy even at your side, when I thought of the loneliness of heart and life to which I had condemned him." "But he should go with us--he should have our home. It will be a simple home, Mary--for though I come of a lordly race, I inherit not their wealth--but it will be large enough for our father." "Kind and generous!" exclaimed Mary, as she suffered her fingers to clasp the hand in which they had hitherto only rested, "would that it might be so--but that were to ask of my father a sacrifice greater even than the surrender of his daughter--the sacrifice of his sense of duty to the people who have chosen him as their spiritual father--and to whom he considers himself bound for life." Captain Percy remained silent long after she had ceased to speak, with his eyes resting on her downcast face. At length in low, sad tones, he questioned, "And must we part thus?" Mary's lips moved, but she could not speak. "I will not ask you to remember me, Mary," he resumed, "for if forgetfulness be possible to you, it will perhaps be for your happiness to forget--yet--pardon me if I am selfish--I would have some little light amidst the darkness gathering around my heart--may I hope that had no duty forbidden you would have been mine?" She yielded to his clasping arm, and sinking on his bosom, murmured there, "Yours--yours ever and only--yours wholly if I could be yours holily."