ited for her answer. For a long time she sat
there, thoughtful and quiet, her eyes cast down. At last she raised them
to me.

"You said one year."

"Yes, but I was sorry afterwards. I want you now. I can't wait."

She looked at me gravely. Her voice was very soft, very tender.

"I think it better we should wait, dear. This is a blind, sudden desire
on your part. I mustn't take advantage of it. You pity me, fear for me,
and you have known so few other girls. It's generosity, chivalry, not
love for poor little me. O, we mustn't, we mustn't. And then--you might
change."

"Change! I'll never, never change," I pleaded. "I'll always be yours,
absolutely, wholly yours, little girl; body and soul, to make or to mar,
for ever and ever and ever."

"Well, it seems so sudden, so burning, so intense, your love, dear. I'm
afraid, I'm afraid. Maybe it's not the kind that lasts. Maybe you'll
tire. I'm not worth it, indeed I'm not. I'm only a poor ignorant girl.
If there were others near, you would never think of me."

"Berna," I said, "if you were among a thousand, and they were the most
adorable in all the world, I would pass over them all and turn with joy
and gratitude to you. Then, if I were an Emperor on a throne, and you
the humblest in all that throng, I would raise you up beside me and call
you 'Queen.'"

"Ah, no," she said sadly, "you were wise once. I saw it afterwards.
Better wait one year."

"Oh, my dearest," I reproached her, "once you offered yourself to me
under any conditions. Why have you changed?"

"I don't know. I'm bitterly ashamed of that. Never speak of it again."

She went on very quietly, full of gentle patience.

"You know, I've been thinking a great deal since then. In the long, long
days and longer nights, when I waited here in misery, hoping always you
would come to me, I had time to reflect, to weight your words. I
remember them all: 'love that means life and death, that great dazzling
light, that passion that would raise to heaven or drag to hell.' You
have awakened the woman in me; I must have a love like that."

"You have, my precious; you have, indeed."

"Well, then, let me have time to test it. This is June. Next June, if
you have not made up your mind you were foolish, blind, hasty, I will
give myself to you with all the love in the world."

"Perhaps _you_ will change."

She smiled a peculiar little smile.

"Never, never fear that. I will be waiting for you, longing for you,
lovi