Delisia clasped her hands together.
“That is wonderful, wonderful of you! If you take me with you, I swear I will help you and do everything you ask of me, my Lord, however difficult.”
“The problem is that no one must find out you are not my niece.”
“Then you – will take me with you, my Lord? Oh, thank you! Thank you! How could you be so marvellous? How could God have sent you to me when I was feeling so desperate and – thinking I must die?”
“You must never think of anything like that again,” scolded the Marquis. “You are young, beautiful and have your whole life in front of you.”
“I know that,” Delisia replied, “but I ran away from Papa, because he threatened to beat me and I am sure he would have hit me again if the butler had not come to say that you had arrived. I felt I wo
