"This is one of the most dangerous places in the country," he had said; "Mason was drowned here; he rode into town one day, and a heavy storm came up. When he rode back at dusk he saw the water out and ventured on. He was swept away. Miss Marion too; she would have gotten over safely, but she mistook the bridge;" and Frances, shivering at his side, had begged him to hush. Now she seemed to hear it over and over again, through the howling of the wind and the lashing of the rain. "You will not venture home to-night?" she asked young Montague anxiously. Edward, looking into her eyes, dark and grave and troubled as they were, lost his head. "Not if you say so," he began unsteadily. Frances, startled at his tone, and the sudden flashing light of his blue eyes, shrank back. "If you say--" he began again. "Come into the fire, man; don't stay out there in the cold, wet as you are." The professor's knees were already smoking before the hot coals. He had lost his opportunity; but slow to decide and swift to act, once the decision was made, he resolved to find it once more--to make it if necessary. He made it. In the evening Frances pushed back her chair. "I must go and see Roxie about breakfast," she said reluctantly. The group about the fireside, the fire, the bright lights, while the storm beat without, were very attractive. Edward rose too. "I wanted to ask you," he began as he walked across the room and held aside the portière, letting it fall behind them, and closing the door likewise, "I wanted to ask you," as if it were an everyday matter at first, but then his tone suddenly changed, "to _marry me_!" A ripple of laughter, half hysterical, broke from Frances' lips. She had expected a question of his domestic affairs. It was, but not of the kind she thought. She steadied herself against the dining-table. "I thought you wanted--" "I want your--self," he insisted. The crucial winter days had taught Frances a bitter humility and distrust of herself. Her lip trembled. "I am not worth giving." "You will trust me to decide," coming a step nearer, a light of hope in his face, and then, seeing that her own nervous fear was greater than his, he took his reticence in both hands. "I love you," he said very low, for remembrance of that other who might be auditor. "You know it!" She shook her head. "You should! I think I have loved you from that moment when I held you." Unconscious of the gesture, he held out his arms and looked down upon his breast. Frances, remembering how she had been sheltered, saved there, felt the hot tears stinging under her drooping lids. "Don't think of me," she pleaded, none the less wildly for her whispering, "don't think of it. I--I will be--" "Don't talk of friendship! Don't dare! I'll never be your friend!" Frances shrank back, hurt, affrighted.