love me?"

"Not in that way, Will."

"And why not?" Then there was a pause. "But I am a fool to ask such a
question as that, and I should be worse than a fool were I to press
it. It must then be considered as settled?"

She got up and clung to his arm. "Oh, Will, do not look at me like
that!"

"It must then be considered as settled?" he repeated.

"Yes, Will, yes. Pray consider it as settled." He then sat down on
the rock again, and she came and sat by him,--near to him, but not
close as she had been before. She turned her eyes upon him, gazing on
him, but did not speak to him; and he sat also without speaking for a
while, with his eyes fixed upon the ground. "I suppose we may go back
to the house?" he said at last.

"Give me your hand, Will, and tell me that you will still love me--as
your sister."

He gave her his hand. "If you ever want a brother's care you shall
have it from me," he said.

"But not a brother's love?"

"No. How can the two go together? I shan't cease to love you because
my love is in vain. Instead of making me happy it will make me
wretched. That will be the only difference."

"I would give my life to make you happy, if that were possible."

"You will not give me your life in the way that I would have it."
After that they walked in silence back to the house, and when he had
opened the front door for her, he parted from her and stood alone
under the porch, thinking of his misfortune.

CHAPTER VI.

SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN.

For a considerable time Belton stood under the porch of the house,
thinking of what had happened to him, and endeavouring to steady
himself under the blow which he had received. I do not know that he
had been sanguine of success. Probably he had made to himself no
assurances on the subject. But he was a man to whom failure, of
itself, was intolerable. In any other event of life he would have
told himself that he would not fail--that he would persevere and
conquer. He could imagine no other position as to which he could at
once have been assured of failure, in any project on which he had set
his heart. But as to this project it was so. He had been told that
she could not love him--that she could never love him;--and he had
believed her. He had made his attempt and had failed; and, as he
thought of this, standing under the porch, he became convinced that
life for him was altogether changed, and that he who had been so
happy must now be a wretch