use I remember that I ask you. Give me the right to care
for you, and you will be happier than you can ever be in these
circumstances."

"You do not know what you ask, Louis. Even if I could, you would never
be satisfied."

"Try me, Ruth," he entreated.

She raised herself from her easy, reclining position, and regarded him
earnestly.

"What you desire," she said in a restrained manner, "would be little
short of a crime for me. What manner of wife should I be to you when my
every thought is given to another?"

His face put on the set look of one who has shut his teeth hard
together.

"I anticipated this repulse," he said after a pause; "so what you have
just assured me of does not affect my wish or my resolution to continue
my plea."

"Would you marry a woman who feels herself as closely bound to another,
or the memory of another, as if the marriage rite had been actually
performed? Oh, Louis, how could you force me to these disclosures?"

"I am seeking no disclosure, but it is impossible for me to continue
silent now."

"Why?"

"Why? Because I love you."

They sat so close together he might have touched her by putting out his
hand, but he remained perfectly still, only the pale excitement of long
repression speaking from his face; but she shrank back at his words and
raised her hand as if about to receive a blow.

"Do not be alarmed," he continued, noticing the action; "my love cannot
hurt you, or it would have killed you long ago."

"Oh, Louis," she murmured, "forgive me; I never thought you cared so
much."

"How should you? I am not a man to wear my heart upon my sleeve. I think
I have always loved you; but living as familiarly as we have lived,
seeing you whenever I wished, the thought that some day this might end
never occurred to me. It was only when the possibility of some other
man's claiming your love and taking you from me presented itself, that
my heart rose up in arms against it,--and then I asked you to be my
wife."

"Yes," she replied, raising her pale face; "and I refused. The same
cause that moved me then, and to which you submitted without protest,
rules me now, and you know it."

"No; I do not know it. What then might have had a possible issue is now
done with--or do I err?"

Her mouth trembled piteously, but no tears came as she lowered her head.

"Then listen to me. You may think me a poor sort of a fellow even to
wish you to marry me when you assure me that you love another