; for I love you!"

He sprang to his feet. "Don't! don't! I pray you," he said wildly, and
almost ran from her.

Mary followed him nearly to the door of the room, but when he turned
he saw that she had stopped, and was standing with her hands over her
face, as if in tears.

He went back to her and said: "I tried to avoid this, and if you had
helped me, it would never--" But he remembered how he had always
despised Adam for throwing the blame upon Eve, no matter how much she
may have deserved it, and continued: "No; I do not mean that. It is
all my fault. I should have gone away long ago. I could not help it; I
tried. Oh! I tried."

Mary's eyes were bent upon the floor, and tears were falling over her
flushed cheeks, unheeded and unchecked.

"There is no fault in any one; neither could I help it," she murmured.

"No, no; it is not that there is any fault in the ordinary sense; it
is like suicide or any other great, self-inflicted injury with me. I
am different from other men. I shall never recover."

"I know only too well that you are different from other men, and--and
I, too, am different from other women--am I not?"

"Ah, different! There is no other woman in all this wide, long world,"
and they were in each other's arms again. She turned her shoulder to
him and rested with the support of his arms about her. Her eyes were
cast down in silence, and she was evidently thinking as she toyed with
the lace of his doublet. Brandon knew her varying expressions so well
that he saw there was something wanting, so he asked:

"Is there something you wish to say?"

"Not I," she responded with emphasis on the pronoun.

"Then is it something you wish me to say?"

She nodded her head slowly: "Yes."

"What is it? Tell me and I will say it."

She shook her head slowly: "No."

"What is it? I cannot guess."

"Did you not like to hear me say that--that I--loved you?"

"Ah, yes; you know it. But--oh!--do you wish to hear me say it?"

The head nodded rapidly two or three times: "Yes." And the black
curving lashes were lifted for a fleeting, luminous instant.

"It is surely not necessary; you have known it so long already, but I
am only too glad to say it. I love you."

She nestled closer to him and hid her face on his breast.

"Now that I have said it, what is my reward?" he asked--and the fair
face came up, red and rosy, with "rewards," any one of which was worth
a king's ransom.

"But this is worse than insanity