“Oh, David Lindsay, I don’t want you to go and leave me, either. I don’t! What should I do without you now? I should cry myself blind! Oh, David Lindsay, how unhappy we are!” “There is a wall between us, dear. I know not what it is, but I feel it bitterly. It may be the wall of caste or prejudice. I would it were down.” “Ah, Heaven, so do I! Oh, dear David Lindsay, don’t go and leave me. Stay with me, and let us be just like brother and sister. Say, darling old playmate, won’t you stay and be my brother?” she pleaded, taking his head between her little hands, and laying her face against his forehead. Now, if he had been a hypocrite, or even a diplomatist, he would have accepted these terms, and trusted to time to win the entire heart of his bride. But he was too honest, open and straightforward, and though his frame shook with emotion, and his voice was well-nigh suffocated, he answered firmly: “No, Gloria. No, dearest. What you ask is beyond human nature; or, at least, beyond mine.” She cried hard for a few minutes, and then suddenly clasped his head again as he knelt beside her, dropped her own upon it, and sobbed forth her submission: “Well, then take me! Take me! I will keep my vow! I will be your wife, David Lindsay!” And now if his great love had not been utterly without self-love he would have taken her at her word. But, still shaking with a storm of emotion, still speaking in an almost expiring voice, he answered: “It is your pity that speaks now, my dearest. You feel grieved for me, and in the pity of your heart you are willing to give up all your late repugnance, and sacrifice yourself to my happiness. Yes, even as you once feared you would do in the case of your guardian——” “But oh, David Lindsay, it is so different! It would have been a mortal sin for me to have been Marcel’s wife. It seems to me now it would be a sin not to be yours!” wept Gloria. “You think and speak on an impulse, dearest, that you would repent. You would be sure to repent it; and then, Gloria, I should be most wretched indeed. No, love, I must not take advantage of this pity you feel, for it is nothing else, Gloria. To-morrow I must leave you. It is my duty to do so. I will send your aunt, Miss de Crespigney, to you——” “Oh! David Lindsay, but my heart will break!” “No, no, love! Listen to me. Try yourself, dearest. Find out what will make you happy. Now you suffer from a generous, tender sympathy with me, which is not love, not the love the soul craves, and you think I will be unhappy. I shall not be so, dearest. I shall be actively engaged in doing my duty.” “Oh, but it is not only for you, David Lindsay, it is for myself that I am grieving. I shall miss you so much!” “Because I have been with you for nearly two weeks, and you have no one else, except these strangers. But, Gloria, in a short time your aunt will be here.” “But she will not be you!” wailed the girl.