f you are cruel to
me, I shall want to die. Be generous! You know I am right. Let me go
quietly, and do not torture me!"

She sat down as they were talking. He, sinking into a chair by her side,
took both her hands in his, and she did not try to free them. When she
made her appeal, he answered as quietly and stubbornly as before:
"Never! You are my wife, and my wife you will always be in my eyes. I
shall not give you up. I shall not make it easy for you to give me up. I
shall make it as hard as I can. I shall prevent it. But I will do
anything you like to make our engagement easy, and I came to-day with
something to propose."

No doubt, had Hazard taken her at her word and coolly walked away,
Esther would have been very unpleasantly surprised. She did not expect
him to obey her first orders, nor did she want to hurry the moment of
separation, or to part from him with a feeling of bitterness. His
presence always soothed and satisfied her, and she had never been calmer
than now, when, with her hands in his, she waited for his new
suggestion.

"I want you to do me a favor not nearly so great as the one you ask of
me," said he. "Give me time! Go abroad, if you think best, but let our
engagement stand! Let me come out and join you in the summer. I am ready
to see you go where you like, and stay as long as you please, if you
take me with you."

Esther reflected for a moment how she should answer. She had thought of
this plan and rejected it long before, because it seemed to her to
combine all possible objections, and to get rid of none. She knew that
neither six months nor six years would make her a fit wife for Hazard,
and that it would be dishonest to lure him on by any hope that she could
change her nature; but it was not easy to put this in delicate words. At
length she answered simply.

"I am almost the last person in the world whom you ought to marry. Time
will only make me more unfit."

"Should you think so," he asked quickly, "if I were a lawyer, or a stock
broker?"

She colored and withdrew her hands. "No!" she said. "If you were a stock
broker I suppose I should be quite satisfied. Now I am low enough, am I
not? Don't make me feel more degraded than I am. Let me go off alone and
forget me!"

But Hazard continued to press his point with infinite patience and
gentle obstinacy, until her powers of resistance were almost worn out.
Again and again the tears came into her eyes, and she would have told
him glad