w of course
that this will be startling to you. You have been brought up to feel that
such things must be more carefully and deliberately done. I do not want
you to feel that this is the only way I can help you, either. If you are
not willing to be my wife, I will find some other plan. But this is the
best way, if it isn't too hard on you, for I love you as I never dreamed
that I could love a woman. The only question is, whether you can put up
with me until I can teach you to love me a little."

She lifted eloquent eyes to his face.

"Oh, it is not that," she stammered, a rosy light flooding cheek and brow.
"It is not that at all. But you know nothing about me. If you knew, you
would very likely think as others do, and----"

"Then do not tell me anything about yourself, if it will trouble you. I do
not care what others think. If you have poisoned a husband, I should know
that he needed poisoning, and any way I should love you and stand by you."

"I have not done anything wrong," she said gravely.

"Then if you have done nothing wrong, we will prove it to the world, or,
if we cannot prove it, we will fly to some desert island and live there in
peace and love. That is the way I feel about you. I know that you are good
and true and lovely! Any one might as well try to prove to me that you
were crazy as that you had done wrong in any way."

Her face grew strangely white.

"Well, suppose I was crazy?"

"Then I would take you and cherish you and try to cure you, and if that
could not be done, I should help you to bear it."

"Oh, you are wonderful!" she breathed, the light of a great love growing
in her eyes.

The bare, prosaic walls stood stolidly about them, indifferent to romance
or tragedy that was being wrought out within its walls. The whirl and hum
of the city without, the grime and soil of the city within, were alike
forgotten by these two as their hearts throbbed in the harmony of a great
passion.

"Do you think you could learn to love me?" said the man's voice, with the
sweetness of the love song of the ages in its tone.

"I love you now," said the girl's low voice. "I think I have loved you
from the beginning, though I never dared to think of it in that way. But
it would not be right for me to become your wife when you know practically
nothing about me."

"Have you forgotten that you know nothing of me?"

"Oh, I do know something about you," she said shyly. "Remember that I have
dined with your frie