e me now. I hope you were not frightened here."

"I heard nothing of it till this morning."

After that there was a pause. He had told himself as he came along
that the task before him could not be easy and pleasant. To declare a
passion to the girl he loves may be very pleasant work to the man who
feels almost sure that his answer will not be against him. It may be
an easy task enough even when there is a doubt. The very possession
of the passion,--or even its pretence,--gives the man a liberty which
he has a pleasure and a pride in using. But this is the case when the
man dashes boldly at his purpose without preconcerted arrangements.
Such pleasure, if it ever was a pleasure to him,--such excitement at
least, was come and gone with Harry Gilmore. He had told his tale,
and had been desired to wait. Now he had come again at a fixed hour
to be informed--like a servant waiting for a place--whether it was
thought that he would suit. The servant out of place, however, would
have had this advantage, that he would receive his answer without the
necessity of further eloquence on his own part. With the lover it was
different. It was evident that Mary Lowther would not say to him, "I
have considered the matter, and I think that, upon the whole, you
will do." It was necessary that he should ask the question again, and
ask it as a suppliant.

"Mary," he said, beginning with words that he had fixed for himself
as he came up the garden, "it is six weeks, I think, since I asked
you to be my wife; and now I have come to ask you again."

She made him no immediate answer, but sat as though waiting for some
further effort of his eloquence.

"I do not think you doubt my truth, or the warmth of my affection. If
you trust in them--"

"I do; I do."

"Then I don't know that I can say anything further. Nothing that
I can say now will make you love me. I have not that sort of power
which would compel a girl to come into my arms."

"I don't understand that kind of power,--how any man can have it with
any girl."

"They say that it is so; but I do not flatter myself that it is so
with me; and I do not think that it would be so with any man over
you. Perhaps I may assure you that, as far as I know myself at
present, all my future happiness must depend on your answer. It will
not kill me--to be refused; at least, I suppose not. But it will make
me wish that it would." Having so spoken he waited for her reply.

She believed every word th