doggedly clung to his only refuge. "I don't understand you—I don't understand you."
Rose, at this, surmounted her scruples. "It would be inexpressibly horrible to me to appear to be free to profit by Mr. Bream's misfortune."
Dennis thought a moment. "To appear, you mean, to have an interest in the fact that the death of his daughter leaves him at liberty to invite you to become his wife?"
"You express it to admiration."
He discernibly wondered. "But why should you be in danger of that torment to your delicacy if Mr. Bream has the best of reasons for doing nothing to contribute to it?"
"The best of Mr. Bream's reasons," Rose rejoined, "won't be nearly so good as the worst of mine."
"That of your making a match with some one else? I see," her companion said. "That's the precaution I'm to have the privilege of putting in your power."
She gave the strangest of smiles; the whites of her excited eyes shimmered in the gloom. "Your loyalty makes my position perfect."
