"Don't look at me like that," he says, earnestly. "I deserve it, I know. I should not have spoken to you as I have done, but I could not help it. You made me so miserable--do you know how miserable?--that I forgot myself. Darling, don't turn from me; speak to me; forgive me!" This sudden change from vehement reproach to as vehement tenderness frightens Georgie just a little more than the anger of a moment since. Laying her hand upon his chest, she draws back from him; and he, seeing she really wishes to get away from him, instantly releases her. As if fascinated, however, she never removes her gaze from his, although large tears have risen, and are shining in her eyes. "You don't hate me? I won't believe that," says Branscombe, wretchedly. "Say you will try to love me, and that you will surely marry me." At this--feeling rather lost, and not knowing what else to do--Georgie covers her face with her hands, and bursts out crying. It is now Branscombe's turn to be frightened, and he does his part to perfection. He is thoroughly and desperately frightened. "I won't say another word," he says, hastily; "I won't, indeed. My dearest, what have I said that you should be so distressed? I only asked you to marry me." "Well, I'm sure I don't know what more you could have said," sobs she, still dissolved in tears, and in a tone full of injury. "But there wasn't any harm in that," protests he, taking one of her hands from her face and pressing it softly to his lips. "It is a sort of thing" (expansively) "one does every day." "Do you do it every day?" "No: I never did it before. And" (very gently) "you will answer me, won't you?" No answer, however, is vouchsafed. "Georgie, say you will marry me." But Georgie either can't or won't say it; and Dorian's heart dies within him. "Am I to understand by your silence that you fear to pain me?" he says, at length, in a low voice. "Is it impossible to you to love me? Well, do not speak. I can see by your face that the hope I have been cherishing for so many weeks has been a vain one. Forgive me for troubling you: and believe I shall never forget how tenderly you shrank from telling me you could never return my love." Again he presses her hand to his lips; and she, turning her face slowly to his, looks up at him. Her late tears were but a summer shower, and have faded away, leaving no traces as they passed. "But I didn't mean one word of all that," she says, naïvely, letting her long lashes fall once more over her eyes. "Then what did you mean?" demands he, with some pardonable impatience. "Quite the contrary, all through?" "N--ot quite,"--with hesitation. "At least, that some day you will be my wife?" "N--ot altogether." "Well, you can't be half my wife," says Mr. Branscombe promptly. "Darling, _darling_, put me out of my misery, and say what I want you to say."