Joan Haste | Page 6

Rock look like this before.
"I am sorry," she murmured.
"Don't be sorry," he broke in; "why should you be sorry? It is a great
thing to be loved as I love you, Joan, a thing that does not often come
in the way of a woman, as you will find out before you die. Look here:
do you suppose that I have not fought against this? Do you suppose that
I wanted to fall into the power of a girl without a sixpence, without
even an honest name? I tell you, Joan, I have fought against it and I
have prayed against it since you were a chit of sixteen. Chance after
chance have I let slip through my fingers for your sake. There was Mrs.
Morton yonder, a handsome body as a man need wish for a wife, with
six thousand pounds invested and house property into the bargain, who
as good as told me that she would marry me, and I gave her the go-by
for you. There was the minister's widow, a lady born, and a holy
woman, who would have had me fast enough, and I gave her the go-by
for you. I love you, Joan--I tell you that I love you more than land or

goods, more than my own soul, more than anything that is. I think of
you all day, I dream of you all night. I love you, and I want you, and if
I don't get you then I may as well die for all the world is worth to me."
And he ceased, trembling with passion.
If Joan had been alarmed before, now she was terrified. The man's
earnestness impressed her artistic sense--in a certain rude way there
was something fine about it--but it awoke no answer within her heart.
His passion repelled her; she had always disliked him, now she loathed
him. Swiftly she reviewed the position in her mind, searching a way of
escape. She knew well enough that he had not meant to affront her by
his references to her poverty and the stain upon her birth--that these
truths had broken from him together with that great truth which
animated his life; nevertheless, with a woman's wit putting the rest
aside, it was on these unlucky sayings that she pounced in her
emergency.
"How, Mr. Rock," she asked, rising and standing before him, "how can
you ask me to marry you, for I suppose that is what you mean, when
you throw my poverty--and the rest--in my teeth? I think, Mr. Rock,
that you would do well to go back to Mrs. Morton, or the minister's
widow who was born a lady, and to leave me in peace."
"Oh, don't be angry with me," he said, with something like a groan;
"you know that I did not mean to offend you. Why should I offend you
when I love you so, and want to win you? I wish that I had bitten out
my tongue before I said that, but it slipped in with the rest. Will you
have me, Joan? Look here: you are the first that ever I said a sweet
word to, and that ought to go some way with a woman; and I would
make you a good husband. There isn't much that you shall want for if
you marry me, Joan. If any one had told me when I was a youngster
that I should live to go begging and craving after a woman in this
fashion, I'd have said he lied; but you have put me off, and pushed me
aside, and given me the slip, till at length you have worked me up to
this, and I can't live without you--I can't live without you, that's the
truth."
"But I am afraid you will have to, Mr. Rock," said Joan more gently,

for the tears which trembled in Samuel's light blue eyes touched her
somewhat; and after all, although he repelled her, it was flattering that
any man should value her so highly: "I do not love you."
His chin dropped upon his breast dejectedly. Presently he looked up
and spoke again.
"I did not expect that you would," he said: "it had been too much luck
for a miserable sinner. But be honest with me, Joan--if a woman
can--and tell me, do you love anybody else?"
"Not a soul," she answered, opening her brown eyes wide. "Who is
there that I should love here?"
"Ah! that's it," he answered, with a sigh of relief: "there is nobody good
enough for you in these parts. You are a lady, however you were born,
and you want to mate with your own sort. It is no use denying it: I have
watched you, and I've seen how you look down upon us;