'm doing right, and in this case they'd have
nothing to say. It's our own business. I don't see as people will
ever do much for you, and a good many would impose on you and expect
you to work beyond your strength. They might not be very kind or
considerate, either. I suppose you've thought of this?"

"Yes," she replied with bowed head. "I should meet coldness, probably
harshness and scorn."

"Well, you'd never meet anything of the kind in my house. I would
treat you with respect and kindness. At the same time, I'm not going
to mislead you by a word. You shall have a chance to decide in view of
the whole truth. My friend, Mr. Watterly, has asked me more'n once,
'Why don't you marry again?' I told him I had been married once, and
that I couldn't go before a minister and promise the same things over
again when they wasn't true. I can't make to you any promises or say
any words that are not true, and I don't ask or expect you to do what I
can't do. But it has seemed to me that our condition was out of the
common lot--that we could take each other for just what we might be to
each other and no more. You would be my wife in name, and I do not ask
you to be my wife in more than name. You would thus secure a good home
and the care and protection of one who would be kind to you, and I
would secure a housekeeper--one that would stay with me and make my
interests hers. It would be a fair, square arrangement between
ourselves, and nobody else's business. By taking this course, we don't
do any wrong to our feelings or have to say or promise anything that
isn't true."

"Yet I can't help saying, sir," she replied, in strong, yet repressed
agitation, "that your words sound very strange; and it seems stranger
still that you can offer marriage of any kind to a woman situated as I
am. You know my story, sir," she added, crimsoning, "and all may soon
know it. You would suffer wrong and injury."

"I offer you open and honorable marriage before the world, and no other
kind. Mr. Watterly and others--as many as you pleased--would witness
it, and I'd have you given a certificate at once. As for your story,
it has only awakened my sympathy. You have not meant to do any wrong.
Your troubles are only another reason in my mind for not taking any
advantage of you or deceiving you in the least. Look the truth
squarely in the face. I'm bent on keeping my house and getting my
living as I have done, and I need a housekeeper that w