'Oh, Ellinor, how I have loved, and still love you, is known only to Heaven and myself; yet never again shall my hand touch yours; never again my arm go round you; never more shall my lips touch yours, though yearning--oh, God only knows how intensely--longing to do so once again--only once again!' She evinced no sign of a truce in this position, and was devoutly hoping that Robert Wodrow would adopt some other _rôle_ than that of lover. 'Robert,' she said, nervously, 'are we not friends?' 'No.' 'Can we not be friends again?' '_Friends!_ How can you ask me? It was, you well know, always understood,' he continued, making an effort to be calm, 'that when I could afford to marry, you, Ellinor, would be my wife. Why take all my love and give me back not an atom now?' She accorded no answer. 'You have ceased to be true to me. I have known and felt it for weeks past,' he continued, 'and yet I cannot regain my freedom of heart.' Her head was weary, but her heart was beating wildly and painfully; and Robert's eyes, as he surveyed her with all their sadness of expression, were expressive of the fondest love. Never before had these two spoken or confronted each other with bitterness of heart until now, and each felt that for the other all was over, and that the tender past, 'the grace of a day that was dead,' would never come again. 'Robert, I have always hated the idea of being poor,' urged Ellinor, as if to extenuate herself, 'and with you, a young, struggling, country practitioner, supposing the summit of your ambition won, I should never be otherwise. Pardon me,' she added, recalling the Alnaschar visions his visit had interrupted, 'if I speak unkindly.' 'Say, rather, cruelly, and you will be nearer the truth, Ellinor Wellwood; yet I am sorry for you.' 'Be not so, Robert. I repeat that I would never be happy poor--now,' she added, involuntarily. 'You have made that discovery since this interloper came!' She was silent, but her silence was assent, and he took it as such. 'Not happy even at dear old Birkwoodbrae or the home I meant to provide close by it?' he said, reproachfully. 'Be reasonable, Robert; happen what may, we can always be dear friends.' 'Friends--again!' he exclaimed, sternly; 'you and I, Ellinor?' Then his manner changed, for the greatness of his love made him very humble, and he said, 'Do you know what you are doing--do you fully think of it even? You cannot love this man, Ellinor, whom, I suppose, you are going to marry, as you loved me.' 'Marriage, Robert!' said she, blushing deeply now; 'how fast your thoughts run.' 'How?' 'If that is to be, it is in the future, of course--but just now----' She paused with some confusion, as she thought of the injunctions laid by Sleath upon her. 'You cannot love him?'