“No, Eustace,” she said, not ungently, as he tried to take her hand. “You must not speak to me so. It is not right. It is not even manly. I think you can know very little of me when you speak of offering yourself to me body and soul, or tell me that you care for nothing else if you can have my love. Do you think I can love any one, save with the love of a deep pity, who can place a mere earthly love before everything else, and talk as though his soul were his own to give into the keeping of another? Do you think I like to hear you say that you would even abandon a cause which seemed to you holy and just and right, simply because you think I may not approve it? Do you wish to make of me your conscience-keeper? O Eustace! think what such words mean!--think what treachery they imply, not only to God but to man, and I am sure you yourself will be ashamed of them.” “I can think of nothing but that I love you, Bride,” broke in Eustace, hotly and passionately, his heart moved by the wonderful beauty of the woman before him; her utter unconsciousness of the wild passions of love and tenderness stirring within him only rousing him to a sense of wilder resolve to win her at all cost. “I love you! I love you! I love you! All my religion, all my faith, all my happiness here or hereafter are comprised within the limits of those three little words. I love you! Surely you will not tell me in return that you hate me, and would spurn me from your presence. O Bride, my life, my love! do not say that you have no love to give me in return.” There was something so appealing in his voice that her heart was touched with compassion, though with no answering response. She let him possess himself of her hand, but it lay cool and passive in his hot clasp. “I do not hate you, Eustace--why should I? I do not hate any living thing. I do not spurn you. I do not spurn your love.” “My darling, ten thousand thanks for that sweet word. If my love is not spurned, surely it will some day be returned! Bride, you will at least let me hope that?” “I cannot help what you hope,” she answered, with childlike frankness. “But, Eustace, I do not think I can ever love you as you wish, and I can never, never, never be your wife unless I do. I like you as a cousin; but indeed that is all. I do not understand what it is that makes you wish to marry me. We should be very unhappy together--I am quite sure of that.” “Ah! no, Bride! Do not speak so. Unhappy, and with you!” “I should be very unhappy,” answered the girl steadily, “and you _ought_ to be, Eustace, if you really knew what love meant.”