, Mr. Orme!"

"I know that I have not said what I had to say very--very gracefully.
But you will not regard that I think. You are too good, and too
true."

She had now seated herself, and he was standing before her. She had
retreated to a sofa in order to avoid the hand which he had offered
her; but he followed her, and even yet did not know that he had no
chance of success. "Mr. Orme," she said at last, speaking hardly
above her breath, "what has made you do this?"

"What has made me do it? What has made me tell you that I love you?"

"You cannot be in earnest!"

"Not in earnest! By heavens, Miss Staveley, no man who has said the
same words was ever more in earnest. Do you doubt me when I tell you
that I love you?"

"Oh, I am so sorry!" And then she hid her face upon the arm of the
sofa and burst into tears.

Peregrine stood there, like a prisoner on his trial, waiting for a
verdict. He did not know how to plead his cause with any further
language; and indeed no further language could have been of any
avail. The judge and jury were clear against him, and he should have
known the sentence without waiting to have it pronounced in set
terms. But in plain words he had made his offer, and in plain words
he required that an answer should be given to him. "Well," he said,
"will you not speak to me? Will you not tell me whether it shall be
so?"

"No,--no,--no," she said.

"You mean that you cannot love me." And as he said this the agony
of his tone struck her ear and made her feel that he was suffering.
Hitherto she had thought only of herself, and had hardly recognised
it as a fact that he could be thoroughly in earnest.

"Mr. Orme, I am very sorry. Do not speak as though you were angry
with me. But--"

"But you cannot love me?" And then he stood again silent, for there
was no reply. "Is it that, Miss Staveley, that you mean to answer? If
you say that with positive assurance, I will trouble you no longer."
Poor Peregrine! He was but an unskilled lover!

"No!" she sobbed forth through her tears; but he had so framed his
question that he hardly knew what No meant.

"Do you mean that you cannot love me, or may I hope that a day will
come--? May I speak to you again--?"

"Oh, no, no! I can answer you now. It grieves me to the heart. I know
you are so good. But, Mr. Orme--"

"Well--"

"It can never, never be."

"And I must take that as answer?"

"I can make no other." He still stood before her,--with gloo