‘I came down after you, Maude,’ said he, in a voice ingeniously modulated between the tone of old intimacy and a slight suspicion of emotion. ‘I came down to tell you my news’--he waited, and then added--‘my fate!’ Still she was silent, the changed word exciting no more interest than its predecessor. ‘Feeling as I do,’ he went on, ‘and how we stand towards each other, I cannot but know that my destiny has nothing good or evil in it, except as it contributes to your happiness.’ He stole a glance at her, but there was nothing in that cold, calm face that could guide him. With a bold effort, however, he went on: ‘My own fortune in life has but one test--is my existence to be shared with you or not? With _your_ hand in mine, Maude,’--and he grasped the marble-cold fingers as he spoke--‘poverty, exile, hardships, and the world’s neglect, have no terrors for me. With your love, every ambition of my heart is gratified. Without it--’ [Illustration: ‘I should like to have back my letters’] ‘Well, without it--what?’ said she, with a faint smile. ‘You would not torture me by such a doubt? Would you rack my soul by a misery I have not words to speak of?’ ‘I thought you were going to say what it might be, when I stopped you.’ ‘Oh, drop this cold and bantering tone, dearest Maude. Remember the question is now of my very life itself. If you cannot be affectionate, at least be reasonable!’ ‘I shall try,’ said she calmly. Stung to the quick by a composure which he could not imitate, he was able, however, to repress every show of anger, and with a manner cold and measured as her own, he went on: ‘My lord advises that I should go back to diplomacy, and has asked the Ministers to give me Guatemala. It is nothing very splendid. It is far away in a remote part of the world; not over-well paid, but at least I shall be Chargé-d’Affaires, and by three years--four at most, of this banishment--I shall have a claim for something better. ‘I hope you may, I’m sure,’ said she, as he seemed to expect something like a remark. ‘That is not enough, Maude, if the hope be not a wish--and a wish that includes self-interest.’ ‘I am so dull, Cecil: tell me what you mean.’ ‘Simply this, then: does your heart tell you that you could share this fortune, and brave these hardships; in one word, will you say what will make me regard this fate as the happiest of my existence? will you give me this dear hand as my own--my own?’ and he pressed his lips upon it rapturously as he spoke. She made no effort to release her hand; nor for a second or two did she say one word. At last, in a very measured tone, she said, ‘I should like to have back my letters.’ ‘Your letters? Do you mean, Maude, that--that you would break with me?’ ‘I mean certainly that I should not go to this horrid place--’ ‘Then I shall refuse it,’ broke he in impetuously.