idence.

"I must have taken hold of your imagination."

"Yes! You make me see visions and dream dreams. Hear how fast I talk to
you! The words can't tumble out quick enough, there are so many more
pushing them."

"No, I mean I have taken hold of your imagination because I am so
queer."

"You are queer, Osmond. It's queer to be so darling."

"If I were sure!" He loosed her hands and looked away from her, and his
face set gravely.

"What, Osmond?"

"If I were sure it was fair to you--best for you to let you know the
truth--then I'd tell you."

"Tell me what?"

He drew her hands back into his. He was looking at her with the first
voluntary yielding of his whole self. It lighted his face into beauty,
the chrism of the adoring spirit laid upon trembling lip and flashing
eye. "I have withheld from you," he said, in quick, short utterance,
"because it had to be. But if you care, too, why deny us both one hour
of happiness, if we part to-morrow?"

"Deny me nothing," she was murmuring. "Let me see your heart."

"You should see my soul, if it could be. Dearest, it was so from the
first minute. I was afraid of you with the terrible fear of love. Don't
you see how different it is with us? You longed for love because you are
the angel of it. I was afraid of it because it would have to mean hunger
and pain and thirst."

"But not now! not now! We have found each other, and it means the same
thing for both of us."

"We have got to part, you know, for a couple of ages or so, or even till
we die. Maybe I can get into some sort of trim by that time, if I give
my mind to it; but here it's no use, dear, you see."

"No use! Osmond, I have given you my love. What do you mean to do with
it?"

He caught his breath miserably.

"I am going to--God! what am I going to do! You are honest," he cried,
"you mean it all, but--sweetheart, look at me, and see it is not
possible. To-night ends it."

She withdrew her hands from his, and sat upright in her chair.

"Then," she said, "you are a coward."

"Am I?" He looked at her, blanched and sorrowful. "Am I, Rose?"

"You are a coward. You love me--"

"You know it! You do know that!"

"You know you do, and then you refuse to take the simple, sweet,
faithful way with me."

"What way, my dear?"

She did not even flush at the words, sprung from a great sincerity.

"Shall I ask you? Shall I ask you to let me take your name and live with
you, and be true to you?"

They looked