“I can’t, doctor; oh, I can’t!” she sobbed. “I never dreamed of this; never supposed you could want me for your wife. I’m only a little girl—only sixteen last October—but I’m so sorry for you, who have been so kind. If I only could love you as you deserve. I do love you, too; but not the way you mean. I cannot be your wife; no, doctor, I cannot.” She was sobbing piteously, and in his concern for her the doctor forgot somewhat the stunning blow he had received. “Don’t, Maddy!” he said, drawing her trembling form closely to him. “Don’t be so distressed. I did not much think you’d tell me yes, and I was a fool to ask you. I am too old; but, Maddy, Guy is as old as I am.” The doctor did not know why he said this, unless in the first keenness of his disappointment there was a satisfaction in telling her that the objection to his age would apply also to Guy. But it did not affect Maddy in the least, or give her the slightest inkling of his meaning. He saw it did not, and the pain was less to bear. Still, he would know certainly if he had a rival, and he said to her: “Do you love some one else, Maddy? Is another preferred before me, and is that the reason why you cannot love me?” “No,” Maddy answered, through her tears. “There is no one else. Whom should I love, unless it were you? I know nobody but Mr. Remington.” That name touched a sore, aching chord in the doctor’s heart, but he gave no sign of the jealousy, which had troubled him, and for a moment there was silence in the room; then, as the doctor began to realize that Maddy had refused him, there awoke within him a more intense desire to win her than he had ever felt before. He would not give her up without another effort, and he pleaded again for her love, going over all the past, and telling of the interest awakened when first she came to him that April afternoon, almost two years ago; then of the little sick girl who had grown so into the heart never before affected in the least by womankind; and lastly, of the beautiful woman, as he called her, sitting beside him now in all the freshness of her young womanhood. Maddy, as she listened, felt for him a strange kind of a pity, a wish to do his bidding if she only could, and why shouldn’t she? Girls had married those whom they did not love, and been tolerably happy with them too. Perhaps she could be so with the doctor. There was everything about him to respect, and much which she could love. Should she try? There was a great lump in Maddy’s throat as she tried to speak, but it cleared away, and she said very sadly but very earnestly, too: “Dr. Holbrook, would you like me to say yes with my lips when all the time there was something at my heart tugging to answer no?” This was not at all what Maddy meant to say, but the words were born of her extreme truthfulness, and the doctor thus learned the nature of the struggle which he saw was going on.