ashamed of yourself; but yet do it no more."

"And then," he continued, without minding her words, "at other times
I feel that it must be my own fault; that if I only persevered with
sufficient energy I must be successful. At such times I swear that I
will never give it up."

"Oh, John, if you could only know how little worthy of such pursuit
it is."

"Leave me to judge of that, dear. When a man has taken a month, or
perhaps only a week, or perhaps not more than half an hour, to make
up his mind, it may be very well to tell him that he doesn't know
what he is about. I've been in the office now for over seven years,
and the first day I went I put an oath into a book that I would come
back and get you for my wife when I had got enough to live upon."

"Did you, John?"

"Yes. I can show it to you. I used to come and hover about the place
in the old days, before I went to London, when I was such a fool that
I couldn't speak to you if I met you. I am speaking of a time long
ago,--before that man came down here."

"Do not speak of him, Johnny."

"I must speak of him. A man isn't to hold his tongue when everything
he has in the world is at stake. I suppose he loved you after a
fashion, once."

"Pray, pray do not speak ill of him."

"I am not going to abuse him. You can judge of him by his deeds. I
cannot say anything worse of him than what they say. I suppose he
loved you; but he certainly did not love you as I have done. I have
at any rate been true to you. Yes, Lily, I have been true to you.
I am true to you. He did not know what he was about. I do. I am
justified in saying that I do. I want you to be my wife. It is no
use your talking about it as though I only half wanted it."

"I did not say that."

"Is not a man to have any reward? Of course if you had married him
there would have been an end of it. He had come in between me and my
happiness, and I must have borne it, as other men bear such sorrows.
But you have not married him; and, of course, I cannot but feel that
I may yet have a chance. Lily, answer me this. Do you believe that I
love you?" But she did not answer him. "You can at any rate tell me
that. Do you think that I am in earnest?"

"Yes, I think you are in earnest."

"And do you believe that I love you with all my heart and all my
strength and all my soul?"

"Oh, John!"

"But do you?"

"I think you love me."

"Think! what am I to say or to do to make you understand that my only
idea of