Benita seemed to change her mind, and sat down again, saying:

"Go on, if you wish."

He bowed slightly, and said:

"I thank you. I have told you what I _was_ half an hour ago; now, hoping
that you will believe me, I will tell you what I _am_. I am a truly
repentant man, one upon whom a new light has risen. I am not very old,
and I think that underneath it all I have some ability. Opportunity
may still come my way; if it does not, for your sake I will make the
opportunity. I do not believe that you can ever find anyone who would
love you better or care for you more tenderly. I desire to live for you
in the future, more completely even than in the past I have lived for
myself. I do not wish to influence you by personal appeals, but in fact
I stand at the parting of the ways. If you will give yourself to me
I feel as though I might still become a husband of whom you could be
proud--if not, I write 'Finis' upon the tombstone of the possibilities
of Robert Seymour. I adore you. You are the one woman with whom I desire
to pass my days; it is you who have always been lacking to my life. I
ask you to be brave, to take the risk of marrying me, although I can see
nothing but poverty ahead of us, for I am an adventurer."

"Don't speak like that," she said quickly. "We are all of us adventurers
in this world, and I more than you. We have just to consider ourselves,
not what we have or have not."

"So be it, Miss Clifford. Then I have nothing more to say; now it is for
you to answer."