"He has made me better. He has made me a woman. But others would not call me a lady. I cannot talk as they do, sit as they do, act as they do,--even think as they do. I know myself, and I will not presume to make myself the wife of such a man as you." As she said this there came a flush across her face, and a fire in her eye, and, as though conquered by her own emotion, she sank again upon the sofa. "Do you love me, Marion?" "I do," she said, standing once more erect upon her feet. "There shall be no shadow of a lie between us. I do love you, Lord Hampstead. I will have nothing to make me blush in my own esteem when I think of you. How should it be other than that a girl such as I should love such a one as you when you ask me with words so sweet!" "Then, Marion, you shall be my own." "Oh, yes, I must now be yours,--while I am alive. You have so far conquered me." As he attempted to take her in his arms she retreated from him; but so gently that her very gentleness repressed him. "If never loving another is to be yours,--if to pray for you night and day as the dearest one of all, is to be yours,--if to remind myself every hour that all my thoughts are due to you, if to think of you so that I may console myself with knowing that one so high and so good has condescended to regard me,--if that is to be yours,--then I am yours; then shall I surely be yours while I live. But it must be only with my thoughts, only with my prayers, only with all my heart." "Marion, Marion!" Now again he was on his knees before her, but hardly touching her. "It is your fault, Lord Hampstead," she said, trying to smile. "All this is your doing, because you would not let a poor girl say simply what she had to say." "Nothing of it shall be true,--except that you love me. That is all that I can remember. That I will repeat to you daily till you have put your hand in mine, and call yourself my wife." "That I will never do," she exclaimed, once again standing. "As God hears me now I will never say it. It would be wrong,--and I will never say it." In thus protesting she put forth her little hands clenched fast, and then came again the flush across her brow, and her eyes for a moment seemed to wander, and then, failing in strength to carry her through it all, she fell back senseless on the sofa. Lord Hampstead, finding that he alone could do nothing to aid her, was forced to ring the bell, and to give her over to the care of the woman, who did not cease to pray him to depart. "I can't do nothing, my lord, while you stand over her that way." CHAPTER XVII. AT GORSE HALL.