George Gissing - Isabel Clarendon, Vol. II (of II)

“Bernard!”

She raised her head, and looked into his eyes with a passion-glow of purpose.

“If I can obtain that money at once—borrow it, perhaps, from some one who will take my mere word to be repaid when Ada is of age—yes, yes, I could—will you marry me, and let us trust to the future? You are clever—you know so much—you will find some position, sooner or later. Who knows? Your sister may marry again. Will you take my hand, and let us face everything together?”

He was shaken from head to foot with the struggle her words excited. With her arms clinging thus around him, in a moment he would yield—and there was a voice within which whispered hoarsely that to yield would be to tempt a fearful fate. What might he not be led to do next? What impossible sacrifice of self-respect might not become inevitable? He had no jot of faith in his own power to make a future. Imagine this woman some day cooling in her love, and speaking with her pale face unutterable things. She would have a right to reproach him, and a reproach divined would drive him to frenzy. She was weak—he would not shape that into words, but the knowledge was in his heart. After all the features of her life that she had revealed to him, how could he dare the step she tempted him to? His love for her was so sincere that to place her in a position which might touch him with shame on her behalf was in thought a horror. Of whom would she borrow a large sum of money on her bare word? That, to begin with, was impossible; think what it would cost her. Before, all was different. Her income and his put together did not in truth seem to him sad poverty; for her love’s sake she would have contented herself. But the new responsibilities—and then this latest revelation–

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