“I love you, and I know you will not stab me,” she answered.

“No; certainly not,” said Mr. Pole, still keeping his back to her.

Struck with a sudden anticipating fear of having to go through this scene on the morrow, he continued:  “No misunderstands, mind!  Wilfrid’s done with.”

There was a silence.  He trusted she might be gone.  Turning round, he faced her; the light of the candle throwing her pale visage into ghostly relief.

“Where is sleep for you if you part us?”

Mr. Pole flung up his arms.  “I insist upon your going to bed.  Why shouldn’t I sleep?  Child’s folly!”

Though he spoke so, his brain was in strings to his timorous ticking nerves; and he thought that it would be well to propitiate her and get her to utter some words that would not haunt his pillow.

“My dear girl! it’s not my doing.  I like you.  I wish you well and happy.  Very fond of you;—­blame circumstances, not me.”  Then he murmured:  “Are black spots on the eyelids a bad sign?  I see big flakes of soot falling in a dark room.”

Emilia’s mated look fleeted.  “You come between us, sir, because I have no money?”

“I tell you it’s the boy’s only chance to make his hit now.”  Mr. Pole stamped his foot angrily.

“And you make my Cornelia marry, though she loves another, as Wilfrid loves me, and if they do not obey you they are to be beggars!  Is it you who can pray?  Can you ever have good dreams?  I saved my father from the sin, by leaving him.  He wished to sell me.  But my poor father had no money at all, and I can pardon him.  Money was a bright thing to him:  like other things to us.  Mr. Pole!  What will any one say for you!”

The unhappy merchant had made vehement efforts to perplex his hearing, that her words might be empty and not future dragons round his couch.  He was looking forward to a night of sleep as a cure for the evil sensations besetting him—­his only chance.  The chance was going; and with the knowledge that it was unjustly torn from him—­this one gleam of clear reason in his brain undimmed by the irritable storm which plucked him down—­he cried out, to clear himself:—­

“They are beggars, both, and all, if they don’t marry before two months are out.  I’m a beggar then.  I’m ruined.  I shan’t have a penny.  I’m in a workhouse.  They are in good homes.  They are safe, and thank their old father.  Now, then; now.  Shall I sleep?”

Emilia caught his staggering arm.  The glazed light of his eyes went out.  He sank into a chair; white as if life had issued with the secret of his life.  Wonderful varying expressions had marked his features and the tones of his voice, while he was uttering that sharp, succinct confession; so that, strange as it sounded, every sentence fixed itself on her with incontrovertible force, and the meaning of the whole flashed through her mind.  It struck her too awfully for speech.  She held fast to his nerveless hand, and kneeling before him, listened for his long reluctant breathing.