“And are you such a hypocrite, Florry, as to call this bad news, when you and I both know how little I shall be needed here in a day or two? We are not to have many more moments together; these are probably the very last of them; let us be frank and honest I’m not surely asking too much in that! For many a day you have sealed up my lips by the threat of not speaking to me on the morrow. Your menace has been, if you repeat this language, I will not walk with you again. Now, Florry, this threat has lost its terror, for to-morrow I shall be gone, gone for ever, and so to-day, here now, I say once more I love you! How useless to tell me that it is all in vain; that you do not, cannot return my affection. I tell you that I can no more despair that I can cease to love you! In the force of that love I bear you is my confidence. I have the same trust in it that I would have in my courage.” “If you but knew the pain you gave me by such words as these--” “If you knew the pain they cost me to utter them!” cried he. “It is bringing a proud heart very low to sue as humbly as I do. And for what? Simply for time--only time. All I ask is, do not utterly reject one who only needs your love to be worthy of it When I think of what I was when I met you first--you!--and feel the change you have wrought in my whole nature; how you have planted truthfulness where there was once but doubt; how you have made hope succeed a dark and listless indifference--when I know and feel that in my struggle to be better it is you, and you alone, are the prize before me, and that if that be withdrawn life has no longer a bribe to my ambition--when I think of these, Florry, can you wonder if I want to carry away with me some small spark that may keep the embers alive in my heart?” “It is not generous to urge me thus,” said she in a faint voice. “The grasp of the drowning man has little time for generosity. You may not care to rescue me, but you may have pity for my fate.” “Oh, if you but knew how sorry I am--” “Go on, dearest. Sorry for what?” “I don’t know what I was going to say; you have agitated and confused me so, that I feel bewildered. I shrink from saying what would pain you, and yet I want to be honest and straightforward.” “If you mean that to be like the warning of the surgeon--I must cut deep to cure you--I can’t say I have courage for it.” For some minutes they walked on side by side without a word. At length he said in a grave and serious tone, “I have asked your aunt, and she has promised me that, except strictly amongst yourselves, my name is not to be mentioned when I leave this. She will, if you care for them, give you my reasons; and I only advert to it now amongst other last requests. This is a promise, is it not?” She pressed his hand and nodded.