“Trust me, give yourself boldly into my care. Let’s go away together and try our fortune in some new place! All places are not like Nevilton. I am a strong man, I know my trade, I could earn money easily to keep us both. Lacrima, don’t turn away, don’t look so helpless! After all, things might be worse, you might be already married to that man, and be buried alive forever! It is not yet too late. You are still free. I beg and implore you, by everything you hold sacred, to stop and escape before it is too late. It doesn’t matter that you don’t love me now. As long as you don’t utterly hate me all can be put right. I don’t ask you to return what I feel for you. I won’t ask it if you agree to marry me. I’ll make any contract with you you please, and swear any vow. I won’t come near you when we are together. We can live under one roof as brother and sister. The wedding-ring will be nothing between us. It will only protect you from the rest of the world. I won’t interfere with your life at all, when once I have freed you from this devil’s hole. It will only be a marriage in form, in name; everything else will be just as you please. I will obey your least wish, your least fancy. If you want to go back to your own country and to go alone, I will save up money enough to make that possible. In fact, I have now got money enough to pay your journey and I would send out more to you. Lacrima, let me help you to break away from all this. You must, Lacrima, you must and you shall! If you prefer it, we needn’t ever be married. I don’t want to take advantage of you. I’ll give you every penny I have and help you out of the country and then send you more as I earn it. It is madness, this devilish marriage they are driving you into. It is madness and folly to submit to it. It is monstrous. It is ridiculous. You are free to go, they have no hold upon you. Lacrima, Lacrima! why are you so cruel to yourself, to me, to everyone who cares for you?” He drew breath at last, but continued to clutch her wrist with a trembling hand, glancing anxiously, as he waited, at the lessening distance that separated them from the others. Lacrima looked at him with a pale troubled face, but her large eyes were full of tears and when she spoke her voice quivered. “I was wrong, my friend, to say that none of you here had any heart. Your heart is large and noble. I shall never--never forget what you have now said to me. But James--but James, dear,” and her voice shook still more, “I cannot, I cannot do it. There are more reasons than I can explain to you, why this thing must happen. It _has_ to happen, and we must bow our heads and submit. After all, life is not very long, or very happy, at the best. Probably,”--and she smiled a sad little smile,--“I should disappoint you frightfully if we did go together. I am not such a nice person as you suppose. I have queer moods--oh, such strange, strange moods!--and I know for certain that I should not make you happy.