"I am not glum."

"Speak a nice word to me. Tell me that you believe me when I say that it
is not of myself I am thinking, but of you."

"Why can't you let me think for myself in this?"

"Because you have got to think for me."

"And I think you'd do very well on the income we ye got. If you'll
consent to marry, this Summer, I won't be glum, as you call it, a moment
longer."

"No, Harry; I must not do that. I should be false to my duty to you if I
did."

"Then it's no use saying anything more about it."

"Look here, Harry, if an engagement for two years is tedious to you--"

"Of course it is tedious. Is not waiting for anything always tedious?
There's nothing I hate so much as waiting."

"But listen to me," said she, gravely. "If it is too tedious, if it is
more than you think you can bear without being unhappy, I will release
you from your engagement."

"Florence!"

"Hear me to the end. It will make no change in me and then if you like
to come to me again at the end of the two years, you may be sure of the
way in which I shall receive you."

"And what good would that do?"

"Simply this good, that you would not be bound in a manner that makes
you unhappy. If you did not intend that when you asked me to be your
wife--Oh, Harry, all I want is to make you happy. That is all that I
care for, all that I think about?"

Harry swore to her with ten thousand oaths that he would not release her
from any part of her engagement with him, that he would give her no
loophole of escape from him, that he intended to hold her so firmly that
if she divided herself from him, she should be accounted among women a
paragon of falseness. He was ready, he said, to marry her to-morrow.
That was his wish, his idea of what would be best for both of them; and
after that, if not to-morrow, then on the next day, and so on till the
day should come on which she should consent to become his wife. He went
on also to say that he should continue to torment her on the subject
about once a week till he had induced her to give way; and then he
quoted a Latin line to show that a constant dropping of water will
hollow a stone. This was somewhat at variance with a declaration he had
made to Mrs. Burton, of Onslow Crescent, to the effect that he would
never speak to Florence again upon the subject; but then men do
occasionally change their minds, and Harry Clavering was a man who often
changed his.

Florence, as he made the declaration abov