A very common, every-day story, you see.
"Remains the fact that I'm stripped to the bone. The estate's wiped
out. And," he added, with a grave smile, "I haven't even discovered
the mythical Hynds jewels. Now you see, Sophy, why I can't marry
you."
"I see why you think you can't."
He flushed to the roots of his black hair. Hynds-Jelnik pride rose
in arms.
"I should cut rather a sorry figure marrying the owner of Hynds
House, in the present circumstances," he said curtly. "You will
remember that The Author called me an adventurer! I have told you I
have nothing."
"Aren't you forgetting your profession?"
"No. But I neglected that, too, Sophy. The _Wanderlust_ had me in
its grip."
"What do you propose to do?"
"I shall leave here, put in some months of hard study, and then
fight my way upward. My father was the greatest alienist of his
generation, and I was trained under his eye. But in the meantime--"
"Yes. In the meantime, what of _me_?" I asked.
He winced as if he had been struck. "You are free," he said, in a
whisper.
"I am free to be free, and you're free to set me free. You never
asked me to marry you, in the first place," I agreed quietly.
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