not think of me in that
way. I can't let you. I _am_ different from other women. You must not
deceive yourself."

"I do not. I know, to my joy, that you are different from other girls;
that is why I am here and asking you to be my wife. That is why I
loved you that day on the mountain-side, because you were different."

"No, no!" she despairingly exclaimed. "You don't understand. I mean
that I _am_ surrounded by spirits, and they will make you ashamed of
me. Think what your friends would say?"

"I am not responsible to my friends. I don't care what they say. They
are not choosing my wife for me. I _do_ know what you mean, and your
protest increases my love for you. I am not concerned with your
ghosts--only with your character."

"But I am a _medium_!" she went on, desperately. "I have this awful
power. You're all wrong about mother and Mr. Clarke. They have nothing
to do with what happens." Her beautiful hands were clinched and her
face set in the resolution to force her confession upon him. Her bosom
rose and fell piteously as she struggled for words, "You must not
misunderstand me. I believe in the spirit-world. Sometimes I say I
don't, but I do."

He spoke soothingly: "There is nothing wrong or disgraceful in your
theory; it is your practice of trance, of mediumship, to which I
object, and which I intend to prevent."

"I want you to do that. I hate my trances and those public circles.
But will that put an end to the rappings and other things that go on
around me when I am awake? That is the question."

This was the question, but he rode sturdily over it, resolute to
subordinate it if not to trample it under foot.

"Not at all. The real question is very simple: can you trust yourself
to me, fully, because you love me? If you do I will answer for the
rest. I do not know why you meant so much to me that day. I do not
know why, out of all the women I know, you move me most profoundly;
but so it is and I am glad to have it so." He said this with a grave
tenderness which moved her like a phrase from some great symphony, and
as she raised her tear-stained, timid face to his she saw him as he
seemed at that first meeting on the mountain-side, in the sunset glow,
so manly, so frank, so full of power that he conquered her with a
glance, and with that vision she knew her heart. Her eyes fell, her
throat thickened, and her bosom throbbed with a strange yearning. She
loved, but the way of confession was hard.

Underst