"I would have given my life for it. I did give it, such as it was; but
it was a very poor concern, I know--my life--and not enough to buy any
good thing.
"I have had a thought of something, but I'm afraid to tell it. It didn't
come to me to-day or yesterday; it has beset me a long time--for
months."
The girl gazed into the embers, listening intensely.
"And oh! dearie, if I could only get you to think the same way, you
might stay with me then."
"How long?" she asked, without stirring.
"Oh, is long as heaven should let us. But there is only one chance," he
said, as it were feeling his way.
"only one way for us to stay together. Do you understand me?"
She looked up at the old man with a glance of painful inquiry.
"If you could be--my wife, dearie?"
She uttered a low, distressful cry, and, gliding swiftly into her room,
for the first time in her young life turned the key between them.
And the old man sat and wept.
Then Kookoo, peering through the keyhole, saw that they had been looking
into the little trunk.
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