release time:2023-12-01 13:42:13 source:nothing happens author:{typename type="name"/}
General Rolleston sighed deeply. "If I thought that--" said he. Then, in a faint voice, "My own courage fails me now. I look into my heart, and I see that my child's life is dearer to me than all the world. She was dying, they say. Suppose I send Moreland to the Continent for a clergyman, and marry you. Then you can live on this island forever. Only you must let me live here, too; for I could never show my face again in England after acting so dishonorably. It will be a miserable end of a life passed in honor; but I suppose it will not be for long. Shame can kill as quickly as disappointed love."
"Robert, Robert!" cried Helen, in agony.
The martyr saw that he was master of the situation, and must be either base or very noble--there was no middle way. He leaned his head on his hands, and thought with all his might.
"Hush!" said Helen. "He is wiser than we are. Let him speak."
"If I thought you would pine and die upon the voyage, no power should part us. But you are not such a coward. If my life depended on yours, would you not live?"
"When I was wrecked on White Water Island, you played the man. Not one woman in a thousand could have launched a boat, and sailed it with a boat-hook for a mast, and--"
Helen interrupted him. "It was nothing; I loved you. I love you better now."
"I believe it, and therefore I ask you to rise above your sex once more, and play the man for me. This time it is not my life you are to rescue, but that which is more precious still--my good name."
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