speaking from his heart. The man was rogue and
scoundrel through and through, but had fallen deeply in love with May
Haredale. He was prepared to go any lengths to make her his wife. It was
the only piece of honesty and sincerity that he had ever displayed since
he was old enough to know the distinction between right and wrong.

May stood silent and trembling. She was not insensible to the compliment
Copley was paying her. She knew that he meant every word he said, and
she knew, too, that there must be a hard fight before she could convince
him that the thing he so ardently desired was impossible. She had an
uneasy feeling, too, that Copley had not yet played all his cards. "I
ought to thank you, I suppose," she said. "In a sense you are doing me
an honour, and this is the first time that any man has asked me such a
question, and naturally I feel disturbed. But what you ask of me is
quite impossible."

"Why impossible?" Copley asked grimly. "Oh, I didn't expect you to jump
at me; I know you are not that sort of girl. Perhaps that is one of the
main reasons why I am so anxious to make you my wife. But if there is no
one else----"

"There is no one else," May said with a sorrowful sincerity which was
not lost upon her companion. "There is no one else, and there never will
be. If it is any sort of consolation to you, Mr. Copley, I shall never
marry."

"Never is a long day," Copley smiled. "At any rate, as long as there is
nobody else in question I shall feel encouraged to go on. I am a very
persistent man, and in the end I always get my own way. I'll ask you
again in a week or two, and, perhaps, when you have had time to think it
over----"

"No, no," May said firmly. "There must be no thinking it over. I could
not marry you. I could not care for you enough for that and I would
never marry a man to whom I could not give myself wholly and entirely.
It is the same to-day, it will be the same next year. Mr. Copley, I ask
you not to allude to this distressing topic again. If you do, I shall
have no alternative but to treat you as a stranger."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of May's words. Her natural courage
and resolution had come back to her. She met Copley's glance without
flinching. Her little mouth was firmly set. Even Copley, with all his
egotism and assurance, knew that the last words had been said.

A sudden blind rage clutched him. His thin veneer of gentility vanished.
He stretched out a hand and laid i