ine? Do you think my love is so
weak, so faint, so feeble, that it can be pushed aside lightly by your
will? Do you think that, if you tried to get to the other end of the
world, you could escape me?"

Half blushing, half laughing, trembling, yet with a happy light in her
blue eyes, she said:

"I think you are more terrible than any one I know."

"I am glad that you are growing frightened, and are willing to own that
you have a master--that is as it should be. I want to talk to you,
Madaline. You evade me lest you should be compelled to speak to me; you
lower those beautiful eyes of yours, lest I should be made happy by
looking into them. If you find it possible to avoid my presence, to run
away from me, you do. I am sure to woo you, to win you, to make you my
sweet, dear wife--to make you happier, I hope, than any woman has ever
been before--and you try to evade me, fair, sweet, cruel Madaline!"

"I am afraid of you, Lord Arleigh," she said, little dreaming how much
the naive confession implied.

"Afraid of me! That is because you see that I am quite determined to win
you. I can easily teach you how to forget all fear."

"Can you?" she asked, doubtfully.

"Yes, I can, indeed, Madaline. Deposit those peaches in their green
leaves on the ground. Now place both your hands in mine."

She quietly obeyed the first half of his request as though she were a
child, and then she paused. The sweet face crimsoned again; he took her
hands in his.

"You must be obedient," he said. "Now look at me."

But the white lids drooped over the happy eyes.

"Look at me, Madaline," he repeated, "and say, 'Norman, I do love you. I
will forget all the nonsense I have talked about inequality of position,
and will be your wife.'"

"In justice to yourself I cannot say it."

He felt the little hands tremble in his grasp, and he released them with
a kiss.

"You will be compelled to say it some day, darling. You might as well
try now. If I cannot win you for my wife, I will have no wife, Madaline.
Ah, now you are sorry you have vexed me!

"'And so it was--half sly, half shy;
You would and would not, little one,
Although I pleaded tenderly
And you and I were all alone.'

Why are you so hard, Madaline? I am sure you like me a little; you dare
not raise your eyes to mine and say, 'I do not love you, Norman.'"

"No," she confessed, "I dare not. But there is love and love; the lowest
love is all self, the highest i