his youth, and
(agonizing and revolting thought!) the name of one would be spoken from
whom she had learned such craft. Lest he see the scalding tears in her
eyes, she turned away and conquered them. What could she do? Where should
she hide her love that it might not be seen of men? And how, in truth,
could she tell him these things?

"Cynthia," he went on, seeing that she did not answer, and taking heart,
"I will not say a word against my father. I know you would not respect me
if I did. We are different, he and I, and find happiness in different
ways." Bob wondered if his father had ever found it. "If I had never met
you and loved you, I should have refused to lead the life my father
wishes me to lead. It is not in me to do the things he will ask. I shall
have to carve out my own life, and I feel that I am as well able to do it
as he was. Percy Broke, a classmate of mine and my best friend, has a
position for me in a locomotive works in which his father is largely
interested. We are going in together, the day after we graduate; it is
all arranged, and his father has agreed. I shall work very hard, and in a
few years, Cynthia, we shall be together, never to part again. Oh,
Cynthia," he cried, carried away by the ecstasy of this dream which he
had, summoned up, "why do you resist me? I love you as no man has ever
loved," he exclaimed, with scornful egotism and contempt of those who had
made the world echo with that cry through the centuries, "and you love
me! Ah, do you think I do not see it--cannot feel it? You love me--tell
me so."

He was coming toward her, and how was she to prevent his taking her by
storm? That was his way, and well she knew it. In her dreams she had felt
herself lifted and borne off, breathless in his arms, to Elysium. Her
breath was going now, her strength was going, and yet she made him pause
by the magic of a word. A concession was in that word, but one could not
struggle so piteously and concede nothing.

"Bob," she said, "do you love me?"

Love her! If there was a love that acknowledged no bounds, that was
confined by no superlatives, it was his. He began to speak, but she
interrupted him with a wild passion that was new to her. As he sat in the
train on his way back to Cambridge through the darkening afternoon, the
note of it rang in his ears and gave him hope--yes, and through many
months afterward.

"If you love me I beg, I implore, I beseech you in the name of that
love--for your,