ve it. And"--with a quick shudder--"to speak to
me so now,--at this time----"

"Perhaps, had I known you first, you might have loved me," persists he.

"I am sure not," replies she, gently but decidedly. "Your dark looks,
your vehemence,--all--frighten me."

"Once assured of your love, I could change all that," he perseveres,
unwisely, in a low tone, his passionate, gloomy eyes still fixed upon
the ground, his foot uneasily stirring the chilled blades of grass
beneath him. "In such a case, what is it I could not do? Molly, will
you not take pity on me? Will you not give me a chance?"

"I cannot. Why will you persist? I tell you, if we two were to live
forever, you are the very last man I should ever love. It is the
kindest thing I can do for you to speak thus plainly."

"Kind!"--bitterly; "_can_ you be kind? With your fair, soft face,
and your angel eyes, you are the most bitterly cruel woman I ever met
in my life. I curse the day I first saw you! You have ruined my
happiness."

"Philip, do not speak like that. You cannot mean it. In a few short
months you will forget you have ever uttered such words,--or felt them.
See, now,"--laying the tips of her fingers kindly upon his arm,--"put
away from you this miserable fancy, and I will be your friend--if you
will."

"Friend!" retorts he, roughly. "Who that had seen and loved you could
coldly look upon you as a friend? Every thought of my heart, every
action of my life, has you mixed up in it. Your face is burned into my
brain. I live but in recollection of you, and you speak to me of
friendship! I tell you," says Philip, almost reducing himself again to
calmness through intensity of emotion, "I am fighting for my very
existence. I must and will have you."

"Why will you talk so wildly?"--turning a little pale, and retreating a
step: "you know what you propose, to be impossible."

"There is nothing impossible, if you will only try to look upon me more
kindly."

"Am I to tell you again," she says, still gently, but with some natural
indignation, "that if I knew you for ever and ever, I could not feel
for you even the faintest spark of affection of the kind you mean! I
would not marry you for all the bribes you could offer. It is not your
fault that it is so, nor is it mine. You say 'try' to love you. Can
love be forced? Did ever any one grow to love another through trying?
You know better. The more one would have to try, the less likely would
one be to succeed. Lo