ation which he at once made
internally to himself. If he had resolved on anything, he had resolved
that he would not marry her. One might sacrifice one's self, he had
said to himself, if one could do her any good; but what's the use of
sacrificing both. He withdrew his arm from her, and stood a yard apart
from her, looking into her face.

"That would be so horrible to you!" she said.

"It would be horrible to have nothing to eat."

"We should have seven hundred and fifty pounds a year," said Guss, who
had made her calculations very narrowly.

"Well, yes; and no doubt we could get enough to eat at such a place as
Dantzic."

"Dantzic! you always laugh at me when I speak seriously."

"Or Lubeck, if you like it better; or Leipsig. I shouldn't care the
least in the world where we went. I know a chap who lives in Minorca
because he has not got any money. We might go to Minorca, only the
mosquitoes would eat you up."

"Will you do it? I will if you will." They were standing now three
yards apart, and Guss was looking terrible things. She did not
endeavour to be soft, but had made up her mind as to the one step that
must be taken. She would not lose him. They need not be married
immediately. Something might turn up before any date was fixed for
their marriage. If she could only bind him by an absolute promise that
he would marry her some day! "I will, if you will," she said again,
after waiting a second or two for his answer. Then he shook his head.
"You will not, after all that you have said to me?" He shook his head
again. "Then, Jack De Baron, you are perjured, and no gentleman."

"Dear Guss, I can bear that. It is not true, you know, as I have never
made you any promise which I am not ready to keep; but still I can bear
it."

"No promise! Have you not sworn that you loved me?"

"A thousand times."

"And what does that mean from a gentleman to a lady?"

"It ought to mean matrimony and all that kind of thing, but it never
did mean it with us. You know how it all began."

"I know what it has come to, and that you owe it to me as a gentleman
to let me decide whether I am able to encounter such a life or not.
Though it were absolute destruction, you ought to face it if I bid
you."

"If it were destruction for myself only--perhaps, yes. But though you
have so little regard for my happiness, I still have some for yours. It
is not to be done. You and I have had our little game, as I said
before, and now we had be