so divine, that it would have been strange if she had
not begun to desire it, and it was with a half reluctant,
half-acquiescent thrill that she suffered him to touch upon what was
first in both their minds.

"I thought you had agreed not to talk of that again for the present,"
she feebly protested.

"No; I was not forbidden to tell you I loved you: I only consented to
wait for my answer; but now I shall break my promise. I cannot wait. I
think the conditions you make dishonor me," said Mr. Arbuton, with an
impetuosity that fascinated her.

"O, how can you say such a thing as that?" she asked, liking him for his
resentment of conditions that he found humiliating, while her heart
leaped remorseful to her lips for having imposed them. "You know very
well why I wanted to delay; and you know that--that--if--I had done
anything to wound you, I never could forgive myself."

"But you doubted me, all the same," he rejoined.

"Did I? I thought it was myself that I doubted." She was stricken with
sudden misgiving as to what had seemed so well; her words tended rapidly
she could not tell whither.

"But why do you doubt yourself?"

"I--I don't know."

"No," he said bitterly, "for it's really me that you doubt. I can't
understand what you have seen in me that makes you believe anything
could change me towards you," he added with a kind of humbleness that
touched her. "I could have borne to think that I was not worthy of you."

"Not worthy of me! I never dreamed of such a thing."

"But to have you suspect me of such meanness--"

"O Mr. Arbuton!"

--"As you hinted yesterday, is a disgrace that I ought not to bear. I
have thought of it all night; and I must have my answer now, whatever it
is."

She did not speak; for every word that she had uttered had only served
to close escape behind her. She did not know what to do; she looked up
at him for help. He said with an accent of meekness pathetic from him,
"Why must you still doubt me?"

"I don't," she scarcely more than breathed.

"Then you are mine, now, without waiting, and forever," he cried; and
caught her to him in a swift embrace.

She only said, "Oh!" in a tone of gentle reproach, yet clung to him a
helpless moment as for rescue from himself. She looked at him in blank
pallor, striving to realize the tender violence in which his pulses
wildly exulted; then a burning flush dyed her face, and tears came into
her eyes. "O, I hope you'll never be sorry," she said;