on't
long, if you stop coming now."

"Is this all, then? Is it the end?"

"It's--whatever it is. I can't get over the thought of her. Once I
thought I could, but now I see that I can't. It seems to grow worse.
Sometimes I feel as if it would drive me crazy."

He sat looking at her with lacklustre eyes. The light suddenly came
back into them. "Do you think I could love you if you had been false
to her? I know you have been true to her, and truer still to yourself.
I never tried to see her, except with the hope of seeing you too. I
supposed she must know that I was in love with you. From the first
time I saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy. Do you think
I was flirting with the child, or--no, you don't think that! We have
not done wrong. We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have a right
to each other----"

"No! no! you must never speak to me of this again. If you do, I shall
know that you despise me."

"But how will that help her? I don't love HER."

"Don't say that to me! I have said that to myself too much."

"If you forbid me to love you, it won't make me love her," he persisted.

She was about to speak, but she caught her breath without doing so, and
merely stared at him. "I must do what you say," he continued. "But
what good will it do her? You can't make her happy by making yourself
unhappy."

"Do you ask me to profit by a wrong?"

"Not for the world. But there is no wrong!"

"There is something--I don't know what. There's a wall between us. I
shall dash myself against it as long as I live; but that won't break
it."

"Oh!" he groaned. "We have done no wrong. Why should we suffer from
another's mistake as if it were our sin?"

"I don't know. But we must suffer."

"Well, then, I WILL not, for my part, and I will not let you. If you
care for me----"

"You had no right to know it."

"You make it my privilege to keep you from doing wrong for the right's
sake. I'm sorry, with all my heart and soul, for this error; but I
can't blame myself, and I won't deny myself the happiness I haven't
done anything to forfeit. I will never give you up. I will wait as
long as you please for the time when you shall feel free from this
mistake; but you shall be mine at last. Remember that. I might go
away for months--a year, even; but that seems a cowardly and guilty
thing, and I'm not afraid, and I'm not guilty, and I'm going to stay
here and try to see you."

She shook her