something which slew the hope they had begotten. He
held her hand in his, and her large confiding eyes shone with an emotion
which was beautiful, but was yet not love.

"If you were but a peasant born like myself," said she, in a voice which
sounded almost tender, "then I should like to talk to you as I would to
my own brother; but--"

"No, not brother, Bertha," cried he, with sudden vehemence; "I love you
better than I ever loved any earthly being, and if you knew how firmly
this love has clutched at the roots of my heart, you would perhaps--you
would at least not look so reproachfully at me."

She dropped his hand, and stood for a moment silent.

"I am sorry that it should have come to this, Mr. Grim," said she,
visibly struggling for calmness. "And I am perhaps more to blame than
you."

"Blame," muttered he, "why are you to blame?"

"Because I do not love you; although I sometimes feared that this might
come. But then again I persuaded myself that it could not be so."

He took a step toward the door, laid his hand on the knob, and gazed
down before him.

"Bertha," began he, slowly, raising his head, "you have always
disapproved of me, you have despised me in your heart, but you thought
you would be doing a good work if you succeeded in making a man of me."

"You use strong language," answered she, hesitatingly; "but there is
truth in what you say."

Again there was a long pause, in which the ticking of the old parlor
clock grew louder and louder.

"Then," he broke out at last, "tell me before we part if I can do
nothing to gain--I will not say your love--but only your regard? What
would you do if you were in my place?"

"My advice you will hardly heed, and I do not even know that it would
be well if you did. But if I were a man in your position, I should break
with my whole past, start out into the world where nobody knew me, and
where I should be dependent only upon my own strength, and there I would
conquer a place for myself, if it were only for the satisfaction of
knowing that I was really a man. Here cushions are sewed under your
arms, a hundred invisible threads bind you to a life of idleness and
vanity, everybody is ready to carry you on his hands, the road is
smoothed for you, every stone carefully moved out of your path, and you
will probably go to your grave without having ever harbored one earnest
thought, without having done one manly deed."

Ralph stood transfixed, gazing at her with ope