“Well,” said Peace, “I don’t know whether you have been able to divine my feelings, or to guess the secret which is locked up in my heart; but I feel that the time has come for me to be outspoken. From the very first moment I saw you but one absorbing thought haunted me. A mighty and overpowering passion took possession of me, and held me in bondage. As time went on, it became more intensified. Take pity on me!” “Pity, and for what?” “I am your slave, your devoted slave. It is little to say, perhaps, that I never knew what love was till I saw you.” His companion gave utterance to a cry of surprise, or it might be alarm. “Ah, my dear young lady, if you only knew how, sleeping or waking, your image is before me, if you only knew――――” “Enough of this,” cried Aveline; “we are not on the stage playing two parts in a fashionable melodrama; you must be less demonstrative.” “I will, as it so pleases you. Listen: I have money at my command sufficient to supply you with every ease or luxury you may desire. Only give me hope――do not drive me to despair. I love you so much that it would be indeed a blessing to devote my whole life to you. Tell me――may I hope?” “Hope what?” “That you will look with favour on me.” “Mr. Peace I have already signified that you surprised me――now I am fairly astonished. What am I to understand by the words you have been uttering?” “I desire you to accept me as a suitor for your hand, and on a future day I hope to become your husband.” Miss Maitland rose from her seat. “There must be an end of this,” she said, with something like anger depicted on her beautiful features. “You refuse then――you doom me to perpetual misery.” “I don’t know what you mean by perpetual misery, but I must tell you frankly that I feel it my duty to at once declare that I cannot for a moment receive you as a suitor, and once and for all I bid you never again to allude to this subject.” Peace was miserably disappointed. He felt humiliated. The reception he had met with was in every way unsatisfactory. He did, in his way, really love the young woman to whom he had made so sudden and unexpected a declaration. Her candour and prompt answers cut him to the quick. He had no right to expect a young lady, who was so immeasurably superior to himself, to treat him in any other way than she had done; but the audacity, assurance, and conceit of the man were beyond all bounds. He had hoped to carry the fortress by storm, but the attempt turned out an ignominious failure. “I cannot tell you, Miss Maitland, how supremely wretched you have made me,” said Peace. “I am sorry to give pain to anyone, but at the same time I have felt it my bounden duty to be explicit. You have my answer. Let me beg of you, as a personal favour, Mr. Peace, not to ever again refer to this subject.” “May I inquire the cause of this aversion, if I may so term it? Is there a rival in the case?”