'Do you understand how much I am
in need of comfort?'

'You can do very well without comfort from me.'

'No, indeed. I shall live, no doubt; but I shall not do very well. As
it is, I am not doing at all well. I am becoming sour and moody, and
ill at ease with my friends. I would have you believe me, at any rate,
when I say I love you.'

'I suppose you mean something.'

'I mean a great deal, dear. I mean all that a man can mean. That is
it. You hardly understand that I am serious to the extent of ecstatic
joy on the one side, and utter indifference to the world on the other.
I shall never give it up till I learn that you are to be married to
some one else.'

'What can I say, Mr Carbury?'

'That you will love me.'

'But if I don't?'

'Say that you will try.'

'No; I will not say that. Love should come without a struggle. I
don't know how one person is to try to love another in that way. I
like you very much; but being married is such a terrible thing.'

'It would not be terrible to me, dear.'

'Yes;--when you found that I was too young for your tastes.'

'I shall persevere, you know. Will you assure me of this,--that if you
promise your hand to another man you will let me know at once?'

'I suppose I may promise that,' she said, after pausing for a moment.

'There is no one as yet?'

'There is no one. But, Mr Carbury, you have no right to question me. I
don't think it generous. I allow you to say things that nobody else
could say because you are a cousin and because mamma trusts you so
much. No one but mamma has a right to ask me whether I care for any
one.'

'Are you angry with me?'

'No.'

'If I have offended you it is because I love you so dearly.'

'I am not offended, but I don't like to be questioned by a gentleman.
I don't think any girl would like it. I am not to tell everybody all
that happens.'

'Perhaps when you reflect how much of my happiness depends upon it you
will forgive me. Good-bye now.' She put out her hand to him and
allowed it to remain in his for a moment. 'When I walk about the old
shrubberies at Carbury where we used to be together, I am always
asking myself what chance there is of your walking there as the
mistress.'

'There is no chance.'

'I am, of course, prepared to hear you say so. Well; good-bye, and may
God bless you.'

The man had no poetry about him. He did not even care for romance. All
the outside belongings of love which are so pleasant to many men and