"Will you listen to me?" she asked, "I have been trying to strengthen myself for this meeting, and you must not weaken me. No; do not kiss me! There is something that _must_ be told--that you _must_ hear!" "I will listen to you, my darling--mine, and no other man's. You do not love another, Phoebe?" "No, Fred." She was not aware that she had uttered the dear name. "I am happy," he said. "Go on, my dear." Then she told him of the oath her father had extracted from her that she would not marry without his consent, and said that, with that oath upon her conscience, she could not expect Fred to be bound to her. "To receive you as my lover," she said, "would be, to my mind, as if I am spiritually breaking the oath I have sworn. It would make me feel guilty; it would lower me in my own esteem; it would be playing with my conscience." "When you took the oath, Phoebe," said Fred Cornwall, immensely relieved, but at the same time perplexed, by the revelation, "you were not aware what you were binding yourself to?" "I was not aware of it," she said. "My father spoke so kindly to me, and seemed to regard you with such favour, that I thought he intended to sanction our engagement. But he may not have known what was in my mind, as assuredly I did not know what was in his. It is not for me to say, and you must not press me. I am striving to do what is right. Help me to do it! I am bound by my oath. Without my father's consent I cannot marry you; he will never give it, and while he lives we can be nothing to each other. I have thought of it--oh, so seriously!--and I have decided in what I believe to be the right way. If in the future I am ever in your mind, I wish you to think of me with respect." "Through all the future that is before me," said Fred, "you will be ever in my mind, and I shall ever think of you with respect. If my love needed strengthening, what you have said would strengthen it; but it can never be stronger, more devoted, more complete than it is; nothing can make it so; and nothing can weaken it. 'Give me your hand, Phoebe.'" She looked at him pleadingly. "Give me your hand, Phoebe." She gave it to him. "I swear to you solemnly, on my honour as a man, on my faith as a Christian, that I will never marry another woman. May misfortune pursue and overtake me quickly if I ever prove false to the love I have given you! Have you anything to say to me, Phoebe?" She understood him. He had given her a solemn pledge. He had a right to a similar pledge from her. "If I do not marry you," she said, "I will never marry. Though we may be parted for life, I will be true to the love I have given you. And now"--she held out her arms imploringly--"strengthen me, Fred!" He rose, and stood apart from her, with his face averted. Presently he resumed his seat by her side. "Until a happier day arrives," he said, taking her unresisting hand, "we will not meet as lovers. We are brother and sister. Kiss me, Phoebe."