“Dearest love,” taking both her hands and looking with gravity into her face, “I did not mean to say it yet, but I must. I love you--I love you--and I would show it in a thousand ways. Be my wife.” She listened to each word intently, her face neither flushed nor paled. She spoke very deliberately: “I--your wife, Mr. Frost? No. You interest me, but if I care for you, there is something that mars its fullness. Forgive me for saying it plainly, but I do not love you.” “But, little woman, you cannot but awaken to it sometime. It is a heart of stone that will not warm to the touch of such love as mine. Love is dependent upon contact; we are only the wires through which the current throbs--lifeless before they are touched, and listless when sundered.” He attempted to take her in his arms, but she slipped from his embrace, and naively replied, “If that’s your theory, there’s one remedy: I’ll break your circuit.” “Was there ever such a tangle of weakness and strength in woman?” he asked himself. He bit his lips and marvelled; he had again been thwarted. Pretty soon he leaned heavily on the table, and looked the embodiment of despair. “What makes you so gloomy?” asked Cherokee, sweetly. “Because I am a lost and ruined man. I never felt quite so alone and friendless.” “Why friendless? Tell me what it is that makes you so downhearted?” Her tones were well calculated to reassure him. “I am suffering from the inevitable misery which, as a ghost, follows the erring,” he said, and his voice was hard. “Tell me all about it, Mr. Frost, that I may be in sympathy with you.” “Then I will tell you all,” raising a face that looked worn and worried. “There is nothing of sentiment in my misfortune; as rascally old Panurge used to put it, ‘I am troubled with a disease known as a plentiful lack of money.’” “Why, Mr. Frost, I thought you were rich; the world takes it that way.” “I did possess a fair competency until two weeks ago, but an unfortunate investment in Reading swept it away like thistledown in the wind. The friends to whom I could apply for aid are in the same boat. For one of them, I, very like the fool Antonio, have gone security for a thousand dollars. To-morrow that must be paid else I lose my pound of flesh, which, taken literally, means my studio, pictures, and, worst of all, my reputation.” “And you call yourself a fool for helping a friend; I am surprised at that.” “You are right. I shouldn’t feel that way, for he is noble beyond the common; his faults, such as they are, have been more hurtful to himself than to others.” Frost spoke magnanimously. “Who is the friend?” she asked, so impulsively that it bore no trace of impertinence. “Pardon me, but I would not mention his name; however, you know him quite well.” Cherokee turned her face full upon him and asked bravely: “Will you let me help you both?”