with every tree and every cottage about
the place. I did not know of myself that I could become such a slave
to a passion. Mary, say that you will wait again. Try it once more.
I would not ask for this, but that you have told me that there was no
one else."

"Certainly, there is no one else."

"Then let me wait again. It can do you no harm. If there should come
any man more fortunate than I am, you can tell me, and I shall know
that it is over. I ask no sacrifice from you, and no pledge; but I
give you mine. I shall not change."

"There must be no such promise, Mr. Gilmore."

"But there is the promise. I certainly shall not change. When three
months are over I will come to you again."

She tried to think whether she was bound to tell him that her answer
must be taken as final, or whether she might allow the matter to
stand as he proposed, with some chance of a result that might be good
for him. On one point she was quite sure,--that if she left him now,
with an understanding that he should again renew his offer after a
period of three months, she must go away from Bullhampton. If there
was any possibility that she should learn to love him, such feeling
would arise within her more quickly in his absence than in his
presence. She would go home to Loring, and try to bring herself to
accept him.

"I think," she said, "that what we now say had better be the last of
it."

"It shall not be the last of it. I will try again. What is there that
I can do, so that I may make myself worthy of you?"

"It is no question of worthiness, Mr. Gilmore. Who can say how his
heart is moved,--and why? I shall go home to Loring; and you may be
sure of this, that if there be anything that you should hear of me, I
will let you know."

Then he took her hand in his own, held it for a while, pressed it to
his lips, and left her. She was by no means contented with herself,
and, to tell the truth, was ashamed to let her friend know what she
had done. And yet how could she have answered him in other words? It
might be that she could teach herself to be contented with the amount
of regard which she entertained for him. It might be that she could
persuade herself to be his wife; and if so, why should he not have
the chance,--the chance which he professed that he was so anxious to
retain? He had paid her the greatest compliment which a man can pay a
woman, and she owed him everything,--except herself. She was hardly
sure even now that if the