that you can never love any
one else."

"How could I, having seen you? I will never degrade your memory by
loving any one else. You may at least rely on that."

"Would you expect me ever to love any one else if I had promised to
love you?"

"You would not. You would keep your promise. I should trust you with
my life."

"Ah, then, you have your answer! You expect me to keep my promises to
you, but to no one else. Is that the honourable thing? Now, listen to
me, Mr. Franklin. I shall keep my promise as a Beauchamp should--as a
Beauchamp shall. I have told you long ago what that promise was. I
promised to love, to marry him--Mr. Henry Fairfax--years ago. I
promised never to love any one else so long as I lived. He--he's
keeping his promise now--back there--in old Virginia, now. How would I
be keeping mine--how am I keeping mine, now, even listening to you so
long? Take me back; take me home. I'm going to--going to keep my
promise, sir! I'm going to keep it!"

Franklin's heart stood cold. "You're going to keep your promise," he
said slowly and coldly. "You're going to keep a girl's promise, from
which death released you years ago--released you honourably. You were
too young then to know what you were doing---you didn't know what love
could mean--yet you are released from that promise. And now, for the
sake of a mere sentiment, you are going to ruin my life for me, and
you're going to ruin your own life, throw it away, all alone out here,
with nothing about you such as you ought to have. And you call that
honour?"

"Well, then, call it choice!" said Mary Ellen, with what she took to be
a noble lie upon her lips. "It is ended!"

Franklin sat cold and dumb at this, all the world seeming to him to
have gone quite blank. He could not at first grasp this sentence in
its full effect, it meant so much to him. He shivered, and a sigh
broke from him as from one hurt deep and knowing that his hurt is
fatal. Yet, after his fashion, he fought mute, struggling for some
time before he dared trust his voice or his emotions.

"Very well," he said. "I'll not crawl--not for any woman on earth!
It's over. I'm sorry. Dear little woman, I wanted to be your friend.
I wanted to take care of you. I wanted to love you and to see if I
couldn't make a future for us both."

"My future is done. Leave me. Find some one else to love."

"Thank you. You do indeed value me very high!" he replied, setting his
jaws