little pitiful smile of unbelief. "Were I a
boy," he rejoined, his earnestness vibrating now in a voice that was
usually so calm and level, "offering you protestations of a callow
worship, you might have cause to doubt me. But I am a man, Ruth--a
tried, and haply a sinful man, alas!--a man who needs you, and who will
have you at all costs."

"At all costs?" she echoed, and her lip took on a curl. "And you call
this egotism by the name of love! No doubt you are right," she continued
with an irony that stung him, "for love it is--love of yourself."

"And is not all love of another founded upon the love of self?" he asked
her, startling her with a question that revealed to her clear-sighted
mind a truth undreamed of. "When some day--please Heaven--I come to find
favour in your eyes, and you come to love me, what will it mean but that
you have come to find me necessary to yourself and to your happiness?
Would you deny me now your love if you felt that you had need of mine?
I love you because I love myself, you say. I grant it you. But you'll
confess that if you do not love me yet, it is for the same reason, and
that when you do come to love me the reason will be still the same."

"You are very sure that I shall come to love you, said she, shifting
woman-like the ground of argument now that she found insecure the place
on which at first she had taken her stand.

"Were I not, think you I should compel you to the church to-morrow?"

She trembled at his calm assurance. It was as if she almost feared that
what he said might come to pass.

"Since you bear such faith in your heart," said she, "were it not
nobler, more generous, that you should set yourself to win me first and
wed me afterwards?"

"It is the course I should, myself, prefer," he answered quietly. "But
it is a course denied me. I was viewed here with disfavour, almost
denied your house. What chance had I whilst I might not come near you,
whilst your mind was poisoned against me by the idle, vicious prattle
that goes round and round the countryside, increasing ever in bulk from
constant repetition?"

"Do you say that these tales are groundless?" she asked, with a sudden
lifting of the eyes, a sudden keen eagerness that did not escape him.

"I would to God I could," he cried, "since from your manner I see that
would improve me in your sight. But there is just sufficient truth in
them to forbid me, as I am, I hope, a gentleman, from giving them a full
denial.