my
existence to be shared with you or not? With _your_ hand in mine,
Maude,'--and he grasped the marble-cold fingers as he spoke--'poverty,
exile, hardships, and the world's neglect, have no terrors for me. With
your love, every ambition of my heart is gratified. Without it--'

[Illustration: 'I should like to have back my letters']

'Well, without it--what?' said she, with a faint smile.

'You would not torture me by such a doubt? Would you rack my soul by a
misery I have not words to speak of?'

'I thought you were going to say what it might be, when I stopped you.'

'Oh, drop this cold and bantering tone, dearest Maude. Remember the
question is now of my very life itself. If you cannot be affectionate, at
least be reasonable!'

'I shall try,' said she calmly.

Stung to the quick by a composure which he could not imitate, he was
able, however, to repress every show of anger, and with a manner cold and
measured as her own, he went on: 'My lord advises that I should go back to
diplomacy, and has asked the Ministers to give me Guatemala. It is nothing
very splendid. It is far away in a remote part of the world; not over-well
paid, but at least I shall be Charge-d'Affaires, and by three years--four
at most, of this banishment--I shall have a claim for something better.

'I hope you may, I'm sure,' said she, as he seemed to expect something like
a remark.

'That is not enough, Maude, if the hope be not a wish--and a wish that
includes self-interest.'

'I am so dull, Cecil: tell me what you mean.'

'Simply this, then: does your heart tell you that you could share this
fortune, and brave these hardships; in one word, will you say what will
make me regard this fate as the happiest of my existence? will you give
me this dear hand as my own--my own?' and he pressed his lips upon it
rapturously as he spoke.

She made no effort to release her hand; nor for a second or two did she say
one word. At last, in a very measured tone, she said, 'I should like to
have back my letters.'

'Your letters? Do you mean, Maude, that--that you would break with me?'

'I mean certainly that I should not go to this horrid place--'

'Then I shall refuse it,' broke he in impetuously.

'Not that only, Cecil,' said she, for the first time faltering; 'but except
being very good friends, I do not desire that there should be more between
us.'

'No engagement?'

'No, no engagement. I do not believe there ever was an actual promise,
a