"Meaning that I must not throw in my lot with yours? Do you know what folly you are talking?" says Luttrell, almost roughly. "Ours, I am assured, is an engagement that _cannot_ be broken. Not all the cruel words that could be spoken--that have been spoken"--in a low tone of reproach--"have power to separate us. You are mine, Molly, as I am yours, forever. I will never give you up. And now--now--in the hour of your trouble----" Breaking off, he gets up from his seat and commences to pace the room excitedly. She has risen too, and is standing with her eyes fixed anxiously upon him. At length, "Let us put an end now to all misconceptions and doubts," he says, stopping before her. "Your manner that last evening at Herst, your greeting of to-day, have led me to hope again. I would know without further delay whether I am wrong in thinking you care more for me than for any other man. Am I? Speak, Molly, tell me now--here--if you love me." "I do--I do!" cries she, bursting into tears again, and flinging herself in an abandonment of grief into his longing arms. "And that is what makes my task so hard. That is why I have not allowed myself to see you all these past days. It was not coldness, Teddy, it was love. I dared not see you, because all must be at an end between us." "Do you think, with you in my arms like this, with the assurance of your love fresh upon your lips, and now"--stooping--"upon mine, I can do anything but laugh at such treason as that?" "Nay, but you must listen, Teddy, and believe that I am earnest in all that I say. For the future I shall neither see you nor hear from you: I must even try to forget you, if I would succeed in what lies before me. From henceforth I shall do my best to regard you as a stranger, to keep you at arm's length." "Never," says Luttrell, emphatically, tightening his arms around her, as though to enforce the meaning of the word and show the absurdity of her last remark. "You talk as though you meant to convince me, but unhappily you don't. The more you say the more determined I am to marry you at once, and put a stop to all such nonsense as your trying to work." "And are you going to marry Letitia also, and Lovat, and the two little girls, and the baby?" asks she, quietly. "Who is talking nonsense now? You seem to forget that they and I are one." "Something must be done," says Luttrell, wretchedly. "I quite agree with you; but who is going to do it?" "I will"--decidedly; "I shall cut the army. My father has been a member and a staunch Conservative for years, and surely he must have some interest. I have heard of posts under government where one has little or nothing to do, and gets a capital salary for doing it; why should not I drop into one of them? Then we might all live together, and perhaps you might be happy." "But in the meantime"--sadly--"we poor folks must live."