s you propose
fighting this cold world."

Unable to refuse him audibly, and still determined to adhere to her
resolution to let nothing interfere with her self-imposed task, she
maintains a painful silence, merely turning her head from side to side
upon his chest uneasily.

"You still refuse me? Do you not think, Molly,"--reproachfully,--"your
conduct toward me is a little cold and unfeeling?"

"No, no. Do not misjudge me: indeed I am acting for the best.
See,"--placing two bare white arms around his neck, that gleam with
snowy softness in the moonlight against the mournful draperies that
fall away from them,--"if I were cold and unfeeling would I do this?"
pressing her tender lips to his. "Would I? You know I would not. I am a
coward too, and fear you would not look upon my plan as favorably as I
do. Darling, forgive and trust me."

"Are you going on the stage?" asks he, after a pause, and with evident
hesitation.

"Why?" with a forlorn little smile. "If I were, would you renounce me?"

"Need I answer that? But you are so young, so pretty,--I am afraid, my
darling, it--it would be unpleasant for you."

"Be satisfied: I am not thinking of the stage. But do not question me,
Teddy. I shall write to you, as I have promised, in six months,--if I
succeed."

"And if you fail?"

"I suppose then--I shall write to you too," she answers, with a sigh
and a faint smile. "But I shall not fail. After all, success will bring
me no nearer to you: I shall always have the children to provide for,"
she says, despondingly.

"We can at least live and hope."

He draws her shawl, which has slipped to the ground, close round her,
and mutely, gloomily, they stand listening to the murmuring of the
sympathetic stream.

"I always think of this spot as the dearest on earth," he says, after a
pause. "Here I picture you to myself with your hands full of
forget-me-nots. I have a large bunch of them yet, the same you
gathered; faded, it is true, to others, but never so to me. They will
always be as fresh in my eyes as on the evening I took them from you.
'My sweet love's flowers.' Darling, darling," pressing her to his heart
in a very agony of regret, "when shall we two stand here again
together?"

"Never," she whispers back, in a prophetic tone, and with a trembling,
sobbing sigh more sad than any tears.

"Give me something to remember you by,--something to remind me of
to-night."

"Shall you need it?" asks she, and then raising