rarest and most charming passage in my life. But I have
seen for some time that we could not go on much longer on the present
footing, and tonight it has come over me that we can't go on even
another day. Maud, I can't play at being friends with you one hour more.
I love you. Do you care for me still? Will you be my wife?"

When it is remembered that up to his last words she had been desperately
bracing herself against an announcement of a most opposite nature, it
will not seem strange that for a moment Maud had difficulty in realizing
just what had happened. She looked at him as if dazed, and with an
instinct of bewilderment drew back a little as he would have clasped
her. "I thought," she stammered--"I thought--I"--

He misconstrued her hesitation. His eyes darkened and his voice was
sharpened with a sudden fear as he exclaimed, "I know it was a long time
ago you told me that. Perhaps you don't feel the same way now. Don't
tell me, Maud, that you don't care for me any longer, now that I have
learned I can't do without you."

A look of wondering happiness, scarcely able even yet to believe in its
own reality, had succeeded the bewildered incredulity in her face.

"O Arthur!" she cried. "Do you really mean it? Are you sure it is not
out of pity that you say this? Do you love me after all? Would you
really like me a little to be your wife?"

"If you are not my wife, I shall never have one," he replied. "You have
spoiled all other women for me."

Then she let him take her in his arms, and as his lips touched hers
for the first time he faintly wondered if it were possible he had ever
dreamed of any other woman but Maud Elliott as his wife. After she had
laughed and cried awhile, she said:

"How was it that you never let me see you cared for me? You never showed
it."

"I tried not to," he replied; "and I would not have shown it to-night,
if I could have helped it. I tried to get away without betraying my
secret, but I could not." Then he told her that when he found he had
fallen in love with her, he was almost angry with himself. He was so
proud of their friendship that a mere love affair seemed cheap and
common beside it. Any girl would do to fall in love with; but there was
not, he was sure, another in America capable of bearing her part in such
a rare and delicate companionship as theirs. He was determined to keep
up their noble game of friendship as long as might be.

Afterward, during the evening, he boasted