each other. I
wish I had been dead before I brought you all this trouble. Richard, do
look at me--do speak to me. Don't you believe that I am sorry? Don't you
know I will do anything you want me to?"

He seemed to try to speak--moved a little, as a person in pain might do,
but, bending his head a little lower on his hand, was silent still.

"Richard," I said, after several moments' silence, speaking
thoughtfully--"it has all come to me at last. I begin to see what you
have been to me always, and how badly I have treated you. But it must
have been because I was very young, and did not think. I am sure my
heart was not so bad, and I mean to be different now. You know I have
not had any one to teach me. Will you let me try and make you happy?"

"No, Pauline," he said at last, speaking with effort. "It is all over
now, and we will never talk of it again."

I was silent for many minutes--standing before him with irresolution.
"If it was right for me to marry you before," I said at last, "Why is it
not right now, if I mean to do my duty?"

"No, it is no longer right, if it ever was," he answered. "I will not
take advantage of your sense of duty now, as I was going to take
advantage of your necessity before. No, you are free, and it is all
at an end."

"You are unjust to yourself. You were not taking advantage of my
necessity. You were saving me, and I am ashamed of myself when I think
of everything. Oh, Richard, where did you learn to be so good!"

A spasm of pain crossed his face, and he turned away from me.

"If you give me up," I said timidly, "who will take care of me?"

"There will be plenty now," he answered bitterly.

"There wasn't anybody yesterday."

"But there will be to-morrow. No, Pauline," he said, lifting his head
and speaking in a firmer voice, "What I thought I was doing, till this
showed me my heart, and how I had deceived myself, I will do now, even
if it kills me. I thought I was acting for your good, and from a sense
of duty: now that I know what is for your good, and what is my duty, I
will go on in that, and nothing shall turn me from it, so help
me Heaven."

"At least you will forgive me," I said, with tears, "for all the things
that I have made you suffer."

"Yes," he said, with some emotion, "I shall forgive you sooner than I
shall forgive myself. I cannot see that you have been to blame."

"Ah," I cried, hiding my face with shame, when I thought of all my
selfishness and indifference