Jasper! How am I to live
an hour in such uncertainty as this? Do you love me or not? Do you wish
me to be your wife, or are you sacrificing yourself?'

'I do wish it!' Her emotion had an effect upon him, and his voice
trembled. 'But I can't answer for myself--no, not for a year. And how
are we to marry now, in face of all these--'

'What can I do? What can I do?' she sobbed. 'Oh, if I were but heartless
to everyone but to you! If I could give you my money, and leave my
father and mother to their fate! Perhaps some could do that. There is
no natural law that a child should surrender everything for her parents.
You know so much more of the world than I do; can't you advise me? Is
there no way of providing for my father?'

'Good God! This is frightful, Marian. I can't stand it. Live as you are
doing. Let us wait and see.'

'At the cost of losing you?'

'I will be faithful to you!'

'And your voice says you promise it out of pity.'

He had made a pretence of holding his umbrella over her, but Marian
turned away and walked to a little distance, and stood beneath the
shelter of a great tree, her face averted from him. Moving to follow, he
saw that her frame was shaken by soundless sobbing. When his footsteps
came close to her, she again looked at him.

'I know now,' she said, 'how foolish it is when they talk of love being
unselfish. In what can there be more selfishness? I feel as if I could
hold you to your promise at any cost, though you have made me understand
that you regard our engagement as your great misfortune. I have felt it
for weeks--oh, for months! But I couldn't say a word that would seem to
invite such misery as this. You don't love me, Jasper, and that's an end
of everything.

I should be shamed if I married you.'

'Whether I love you or not, I feel as if no sacrifice would be too great
that would bring you the happiness you deserve.'

'Deserve!' she repeated bitterly. 'Why do I deserve it? Because I long
for it with all my heart and soul? There's no such thing as deserving.
Happiness or misery come to us by fate.'

'Is it in my power to make you happy?'

'No; because it isn't in your power to call dead love to life again. I
think perhaps you never loved me. Jasper, I could give my right hand if
you had said you loved me before--I can't put it into words; it sounds
too base, and I don't wish to imply that you behaved basely. But if you
had said you loved me before that, I should have it always