was turning around, that the walls
had receded, that there was but blankness. His lips were on hers. In
their contact everything ceased to be save the consciousness of
something so poignant, so new, that to still the pain of the joy of it
she struggled to be free.

Kissing her again Loftus let her go. Dizzily she got from the sofa.
The parasol had fallen. Her hat was awry. To straighten it she moved
to a mirror. Her face was scarlet. Instantly fear possessed her, fear
not of him but of herself. With uncertain fingers she tried to adjust
the hat.

"I must go."

But Loftus came to her. Bending a bit he whispered in her ear: "Don't
go--don't go ever."

Do what she might she could not manage with her hat. In the glass it
was no longer that which she saw, nor her face, but an abyss, suddenly
precipitate, that had opened there.

"No, don't go," Loftus was saying. "I love you and you love me."

It was, though, not love that was emotionalizing her then. It was
fear. A fear of that abyss and of the lower depths beneath.

"Don't go," Loftus reiterated. "Don't, that is, if you do love me; and
if you do, tell me, will you be my wife?"

At this, before her, in abrupt enchantment, the abyss disappeared.
Where its depths had been were parterres of gems, slopes of asphodel,
the gleam and brilliance of the gates of paradise.

"Your wife!" The wonder of it was in her voice and marveling eyes.

"Come." Taking her hand, Loftus led her to their former seat.

"But----"

"But what?"

"How can I be your wife? I am nobody."

"You are perfect. There is only one thing I fear--" Loftus hesitated.
Nervously the girl looked at him.

"Only one," he continued. "I am not and never shall be half good
enough for you."

"Oh!"

"Never half enough."

"Oh! How can you say that? It is not true. Could I care for you if it
were?"

"And you do?"

"Don't you know it?"

"Then don't go, don't go from me ever."

"But----"

"Yes, I know. You are thinking of your father, of whom you have told
me; perhaps, too, of my mother, of whom I told you. When she knows you
and learns to love you, as she will, we can be married before all the
world. We could now were I not dependent on her. Yet then, am I not
dependent too on you? Come with me, and afterward----"

"I cannot," the girl cried; "it would kill my father."

"You have but to wire him that you have gone to be married, and it
will be the truth."

"I cannot," the girl repeated. "Oh, w