e.

"Speak to me, Norine! My own--my dearest, don't cry so. Look up, and say
you are not sorry I have come!"

She looked up at him, forgetful of Richard Gilbert and her wedding day,
forgetful of loyalty and truth.

"I thought you had forgotten me," she said. "I thought I would never see
you again. And oh, I have been so miserable--so miserable!"

"And yet you are about to be married, Norine!" At that reproachful cry
she suddenly remembered the New York lawyer, and all the duties of her
life. She drew her hands away resolutely in spite of his resistance and
stood free--trembling and white.

"You are going to be married to Richard Gilbert, Norine?"

"Yes," she said, falteringly; "and you--you are going to be married,
too?"

"I?" in astonishment; "I married! Who can have told you that?"

"Mr. Gilbert."

"Then it is the first time I have ever known him--lawyer though he
be--to tell a falsehood. No, Norine, I am not going to be married."

She caught her breath in the shock, the joy of the words.

"_Not_ going to be married! Not going--Oh, Mr. Thorndyke, don't deceive
me--don't!"

"I am not deceiving you Norine--why should I? There is but one whom I
love; if she will be my wife I will marry--not unless. Can you not guess
who it is, Norine? Can you not guess what I have come from New York to
say before it is too late? I only heard of your projected marriage last
week--heard it then by merest accident. Ah, Norine! if you knew what a
shock that announcement was. Ever since I left here I have been trying
to school myself to forget you, but in vain. I never knew how utterly in
vain until I heard you were the promised wife of Richard Gilbert. I
could stay away no longer--I felt I must tell you or die. It may seem
like presumption, like madness, my coming at the eleventh hour, and you
the promised bride of another man, but I had to come. Even if you
refused me with scorn, I felt I must come and hear my doom from your
lips. They have urged me to marry another, an heiress she is, and a ward
of my uncle's--he even threatens to disinherit me if I do not. But I
will be disinherited, I will brave poverty and face the future boldly so
that the girl I love is by my side. Helen is beautiful, and will not say
no, they tell me, if I ask, but what is that to me since I love only
you. Norine, tell me I have not come too late. You don't, you can't care
for this elderly lawyer, old enough to be your father. Norine, speak and
tell me