n we were very
young I think you loved me. Do you remember seven years ago at
Longbarns, when they parted us and sent me away, because--because we
were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew. I
know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that I would drown myself.
You loved me then, Emily."

"I was a child then."

"Now you are not a child. Do you love me now,--to-day? If so, give me
your hand, and let the past be buried in silence. All this has come,
and gone, and has nearly made us old. But there is life before us
yet, and if you are to me as I am to you it is better that our lives
should be lived together." Then he stood before her with his hand
stretched out.

"I cannot do it," she said.

"And why?"

"I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself."

"But do you love me?"

"I cannot analyse my heart. Love you;--yes! I have always loved you.
Everything about you is dear to me. I can triumph in your triumphs,
rejoice at your joy, weep at your sorrows, be ever anxious that all
good things may come to you;--but, Arthur, I cannot be your wife."

"Not though it would make us happy,--Fletchers and Whartons all
alike?"

"Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that I have
forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it,
do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past,
without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet
constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have
trembled when I have heard your voice. My heart has beat at the sound
of your footstep as though it would burst! Do you think I have never
told myself what I had thrown away? But it is gone, and it is not now
within my reach."

"It is; it is," he said, throwing himself on his knees, and twining
his arms round her.

"No;--no;--no;--never. I am disgraced and shamed. I have lain among
the pots till I am foul and blackened. Take your arms away. They
shall not be defiled," she said as she sprang to her feet. "You shall
not have the thing that he has left."

"Emily,--it is the only thing in the world that I crave."

"Be a man and conquer your love,--as I will. Get it under your feet
and press it to death. Tell yourself that it is shameful and must be
abandoned. That you, Arthur Fletcher, should marry the widow of that
man,--the woman that he had thrust so far into the mire that she can
never again be clean;--you, the chosen one, the bright star