; but if you love
me, you can forgive that to my loving you so long before I spoke."

She gazed at him with parted lips.

"Oh, mercy! What shall I do? If it's true--what you say--you must go!"
she said. "And you must never come any more. Do you promise that?"

"Certainly not," said the young man. "Why should I promise such a
thing--so abominably wrong? I could obey if you didn't love me----"

"Oh, I don't! Indeed I don't! Now will you obey."

"No. I don't believe you." "Oh!"

He possessed himself of her hand again.

"My love--my dearest! What is this trouble, that you can't tell it? It
can't be anything about yourself. If it is anything about any one
else, it wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no matter
what it was. I would be only too glad to show by any act or deed I
could that nothing could change me towards you."

"Oh, you don't understand!"

"No, I don't. You must tell me."

"I will never do that."

"Then I will stay here till your mother comes, and ask her what it is."

"Ask HER?"

"Yes! Do you think I will give you up till I know why I must?"

"You force me to it! Will you go if I tell you, and never let any human
creature know what you have said to me?"

"Not unless you give me leave."

"That will be never. Well, then----" She stopped, and made two or
three ineffectual efforts to begin again. "No, no! I can't. You must
go!"

"I will not go!"

"You said you--loved me. If you do, you will go."

He dropped the hands he had stretched towards her, and she hid her face
in her own.

"There!" she said, turning it suddenly upon him. "Sit down there. And
will you promise me--on your honour--not to speak--not to try to
persuade me--not to--touch me? You won't touch me?"

"I will obey you, Penelope."

"As if you were never to see me again? As if I were dying?"

"I will do what you say. But I shall see you again; and don't talk of
dying. This is the beginning of life----"

"No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at last something of the
hoarse drawl which the tumult of her feeling had broken into those
half-articulate appeals. She sat down too, and lifted her face towards
him. "It's the end of life for me, because I know now that I must have
been playing false from the beginning. You don't know what I mean, and
I can never tell you. It isn't my secret--it's some one else's.
You--you must never come here again. I can't tell you why, and you
must never try to k