of our not being
able to meet with freedom. The fear that something may snatch you from
me keeps me in a state of perpetual apprehension.'

'It is too true also of me! I dread that some accident may happen, and
waste my days in meeting the trouble half-way.'

'So our lives go on, and our labours stand still. Now for the remedy.
Dear Lady Constantine, allow me to marry you.'

She started, and the wind without shook the building, sending up a yet
intenser moan from the firs.

'I mean, marry you quite privately. Let it make no difference whatever
to our outward lives for years, for I know that in my present position
you could not possibly acknowledge me as husband publicly. But by
marrying at once we secure the certainty that we cannot be divided by
accident, coaxing, or artifice; and, at ease on that point, I shall
embrace my studies with the old vigour, and you yours.'

Lady Constantine was so agitated at the unexpected boldness of such a
proposal from one hitherto so boyish and deferential that she sank into
the observing-chair, her intention to remain for only a few minutes being
quite forgotten.

She covered her face with her hands. 'No, no, I dare not!' she
whispered.

'But is there a single thing else left to do?' he pleaded, kneeling down
beside her, less in supplication than in abandonment. 'What else can we
do?'

'Wait till you are famous.'

'But I cannot be famous unless I strive, and this distracting condition
prevents all striving!'

'Could you not strive on if I--gave you a promise, a solemn promise, to
be yours when your name is fairly well known?'

St. Cleeve breathed heavily. 'It will be a long, weary time,' he said.
'And even with your promise I shall work but half-heartedly. Every hour
of study will be interrupted with "Suppose this or this happens;"
"Suppose somebody persuades her to break her promise;" worse still,
"Suppose some rival maligns me, and so seduces her away." No, Lady
Constantine, dearest, best as you are, that element of distraction would
still remain, and where that is, no sustained energy is possible. Many
erroneous things have been written and said by the sages, but never did
they float a greater fallacy than that love serves as a stimulus to win
the loved one by patient toil.'

'I cannot argue with you,' she said weakly.

'My only possible other chance would lie in going away,' he resumed after
a moment's reflection, with his eyes on the lantern flame, whic