he loosed her from his arms and suffered
her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down
opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.

"No," she said, "I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the
whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by.
To-night must be the very last of it."

"Mr. Noel!" he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful
laugh. "You can never call me that again, without feeling it the
hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!"

The assured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten
her. She saw the struggle before her assuming proportions that made her
fear for herself--not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power
to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:

"I will never marry you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because--ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that
thought plead for me."

"It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use
to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours."

"But if you know that you make me suffer--"

"I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy,
beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every
association of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no
one will know us for anything but what we are--what alone we shall be
henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united
in the holy bond of marriage, which God has blessed--just a husband and
wife, Christine--get used to the dear names and thought--with whose
right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea of
the past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no
past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves,
Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of
either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I'll engage to
make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple
thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs.
Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow
morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of
happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not,
Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me--just as
surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting