"Uncle Reg says that you would like to see me once again." "Of course I want to see you once, and twice,--and always. Ayala, if you could know it! If you could only know it!" Then he clasped his two hands high upon his breast, not as though appealing to her heart, but striking his bosom in very agony. "Ayala, I feel that, if I do not have you as my own, I can only die for the want of you. Ayala, do you believe me?" "I suppose I believe you, but how can I help it?" "Try to help it! Try to try and help it! Say a word that you will perhaps help it by-and-bye." Then there came a dark frown upon her brow,--not, indeed, from anger, but from a feeling that so terrible a task should be thrown upon her. "I know you think that I am common." "I have never said a word, Tom, but that I could not love you." "But I am true,--true as the sun. Would I come again after all if it were not that I cannot help coming? You have heard that I have been,--been misbehaving myself?" "I have not thought about that." "It has been so because I have been so wretched. Ayala, you have made me so unhappy. Ayala, you can make me the happiest man there is in London this day. I seem to want nothing else. As for drink, or clubs, or billiards, and all that, they are nothing to me,--unless when I try to forget that you are so--so unkind to me!" "It is not unkind, not to do as you ask me." "To do as I ask you,--that would be kind. Oh, Ayala, cannot you be kind to me?" She shook her head, still standing in the place which she had occupied from the beginning. "May I come again? Will you give me three months, and then think of it? If you would only say that, I would go back to my work and never leave it." But she still shook her head. "Must I never hope?" "Not for that, Tom. How can I help it?" "Not help it." "No. How can I help it? One does not fall in love by trying,--nor by trying prevent it." "By degrees you might love me,--a little." She had said all that she knew how to say, and again shook her head. "It is that accursed Colonel," he exclaimed, forgetting himself as he thought of his rival. "He is not accursed," said Ayala, angrily. "Then you love him?" "No! But you should not ask. You have no right to ask. It is not proper." "You are not engaged to him?" "No; I am not engaged to him. I do not love him. As you will ask, I tell you. But you should not ask; and he is not accursed. He is better than you,--though I do not love him. You should not have driven me to say this. I do not ask you questions." "There is none that I would not answer. Stay, Ayala," for now she was going to leave the room. "Stay yet a moment. Do you know that you are tearing my heart in pieces? Why is it that you should make me so wretched? Dear Ayala;--dearest Ayala;--stay yet a moment."