"No, Min," I answered; "_I_ cannot promise any longer what I feel unable
to perform. You must be everything to me or nothing! I would lay down
my life for you, darling! Won't you give me some hope?"

"Oh, Frank! do not torture me,"--she exclaimed, in a choking voice--"I
have pledged my word, and I cannot break it."

"Better to break my heart than your mother's selfish command!" I said,
bitterly, knowing, now, how she had probably been bound down to refuse
me, should I again offer my love.

O wise, far-reaching, far-seeing Mrs Clyde!

"Do not be so unkind to me, Frank," said Min, half sobbingly, after a
little time, during which I tried to keep down my own emotion; and, I
felt a warm little tear drop on the hand in which I still clasped hers
in a lingering clasp--"I have been a friend, though, to you; have I not,
Frank?" she asked me.

"Tell me, Min," I said, making a last appeal; "do you love me--have you
ever loved me? Let me have some consolation, to comfort me!"

"I must not say anything, must not promise anything. I have given my
word to mamma. But, oh, Frank! do not be angry with me. Let us be
friends still, won't you?"

"No," said I, sternly--I wondered afterwards at my cruelty; but, I was
goaded on to desperation, and hardly knew what I was saying.--"We part
for ever now, Min! Your mother may certainly procure you a wealthier
suitor, but none who can love you as truly as I do, as I have done!
Good-bye. I dare say you will soon be happy with some one else; but,
perhaps, you will think sometimes of him whom you have discarded, whose
heart you have broken, whose life you have wrecked?--No, I do not want
you to think of me at all!" I added, passionately, at the last--and
then, I left her.

What a walk home I had, in the early dawn!

I would not take a cab, although several passed me. I wanted to be
alone in my misery; and so, I walked the whole way to Saint Canon's--
three miles if it were an inch, over a rough, newly-stoned road, too,
and in patent-leather boots with paper soles! I never thought of that,
however, nor felt the stones, notwithstanding that my boots were
entirely worn out when I reached home. I might have been walking along
on a Brussels carpet, for all that I knew to the contrary!

My thoughts were agony:--my mind, a perfect hell; and, that dreadful
_Mabel_ waltz seemed to be continually running through my brain,
tinkling the death knell of all my hopes!

The tune always