‘“ Huntingdon, I am not a castaway!” said he, seizing my hand and squeezing it like a vice. “There is happiness in store for me yet—even in this life—she loves me!”
‘“ Indeed!” said I. “Has she told you so?”
‘“ No, but I can no longer doubt it. Do you not see how pointedly kind and affectionate she is? And she knows the utmost extent of my poverty, and cares nothing about it! She knows all the folly and all the wickedness of my former life, and is not afraid to trust me—and my rank and title are no allurements to her; for them she utterly disregards. She is the most generous, high-minded being that can be conceived of. She will save me, body and soul, from destruction. Already, she has ennobled me in my own estimation, and made me three times better, wiser, greater than I was.
