eyed him, as if she were his patient, and
must do so. "If I were superstitious I should say that you receive me
ominously," he said, fixing his gray eyes keenly upon her.

"I do!" she forced herself to reply. "I wish you had not come."

"That's explicit, at any rate. Have you thought it over?"

"No; I had no need to do that, I had fully resolved when I spoke
yesterday. Dr. Mulbridge, why didn't you spare me this? It's unkind of
you to insist, after what I said. You know that I must hate to repeat
it. I do value you so highly in some ways that I blame you for obliging
me to hurt you--if it does hurt--by telling you again that I don't love
you."

He drew in a long breath, and set his teeth hard upon his lip. "You may
depend upon its hurting," he said, "but I was glad to risk the pain,
whatever it was, for the chance of getting you to reconsider. I presume
I'm not the conventional wooer. I'm too old for it, and I'm too blunt
and plain a man. I've been thirty-five years making up my mind to ask
you to marry me. You're the first woman, and you shall be the last. You
couldn't suppose I was going to give you up for one no?"

"You had better."

"Not for twenty! I can understand very well how you never thought of
me in this way; but there's no reason why you shouldn't. Come, it's a
matter that we can reason about, like anything else."

"No. I told you, it's something we can't reason about. Or yes, it is. I
will reason with you. You say that you love me?"

"Yes."

"If you did n't love me, you would n't ask me to marry you?"

"No."

"Then how can you expect me to marry you without loving you?"

"I don't. All that I ask is that you won't refuse me. I know that you
can love me."

"No, no, never!"

"And I only want you to take time to try."

"I don't wish to try. If you persist, I must leave the room. We had
better part. I was foolish to see you. But I thought--I was sorry--I
hoped to make it less unkind to you."

"In spite of yourself, you were relenting."

"Not at all!"

"But if you pitied me, you did care for me a little?"

"You know that I had the highest respect for you as a physician. I
tell you that you were my ideal in that way, and I will tell you that
if"--she stopped, and he continued for her.

"If you had not resolved to give it up, you might have done what I
asked."

"I did not say that," she answered indignantly.

"But why do you give it up?"

"Because I am not equal to it."

"How do you