"Not forget you, indeed!" she said in a rising voice. "I may forgive you this insult, but you may be sure that I will do my best to forget you, just as quickly as I can. I am not given to remembering unpleasant things." "Dexie, do not talk so bitterly; you do not mean it; say you do not, Dexie?" he said, entreatingly. "You are vexed at being kept here against your will; come, then, let us go inside and talk it over quietly," he added, persuasively, and he reached for her hand. "But I _do_ mean every word of it," and she stepped back out of his reach, "and if you do not wish to hear me express myself more plainly, I'd advise you to open the window at once." "Hear me a moment, Dexie. I know you are prejudiced against me on account of Gussie; but give me time to prove that I am in earnest when I say that it is you that I love," and her hands were instantly imprisoned in his strong clasp, "and I love you, Dexie, with the intense love that a strong man feels for the one woman who is all the world to him, a love that is not to be compared with the boyish feeling that Lancy Gurney has for you. Give me some hope, Dexie, that sometime in the future, when you have rightly considered the matter, you will look on me with a more kindly feeling in your heart than you are willing to own to to-night." Dexie freed her hands by a great effort. His words had flowed like a torrent from his lips, and she took a step back from him, as she replied, "Mr. McNeil, I will _never_ regard you in the light you are thinking of, so all this talk is worse than folly." "Have I spoken too late?" he almost hissed. His eyes seemed to burn as he looked into her face. "Have you already promised yourself to Lancy? Tell me!" "I will not!" came the defiant answer. "You have no right to ask such a question, and I will not answer it!" Her defiant air and scornful words angered him. He had buoyed himself up with the hope that if he once declared his love she would be touched with the declaration, and, if she did refuse him, would do it in a kindly way that would bid him hope for better luck by and by; but to have his love flung back in his teeth, as it were, was more than his passionate nature could bear. "Oh! so you love him, do you, and spurn me. Tell me, is it so?" Again she stepped back from him as he was speaking, and was unaware how very near she was to the edge of the roof; but Hugh observed it, and thinking he could force a confession from her lips through fear, if by no other means, he quickly grasped her arm, saying in a voice trembling with passion: "Do you love him? Tell me, or I'll throw you over!" Dexie turned her head, and for one awful moment, as she realized her peril, her face blanched to her very lips; but instead of the answer Hugh expected, she raised her eyes to his, and he quailed beneath their terrible glance, as she cried: "Throw me over then, you coward, for I'll never tell you!"