"I hardly remember," Molly says, running her slender fingers across her brow. "Well,"--with a sigh,--"I have fallen into such low estate since then that I think I have no power within me now to hate any one." "You did not mean it, perhaps?" still painfully calm, although he knows the moments of grace are slipping surely, swiftly, trying vainly to encourage hope. "You said it, perhaps, in an instant of passion? One often does. One exaggerates a small offense. Is it not so?" "Yes,"--with her thoughts as far from him as the earth is from the heavens,--"it may be so." "You think so? You did _not_ mean it?" with a sudden gleam of misplaced confidence. "Oh! if you only knew how I have suffered since that fatal word passed your lips!--but you did not mean it. In time--who knows?--you may even bring yourself to care for me a little. Molly,"--seizing her hand,--"speak--speak, and say it will be so." "No, no," exclaims she, at last, coming back to the present, and understanding him. "Never. Why do you so deceive yourself? Do not think it; do not try to believe it. And"--with a quick shudder--"to speak to me so now,--at this time----" "Perhaps, had I known you first, you might have loved me," persists he. "I am sure not," replies she, gently but decidedly. "Your dark looks, your vehemence,--all--frighten me." "Once assured of your love, I could change all that," he perseveres, unwisely, in a low tone, his passionate, gloomy eyes still fixed upon the ground, his foot uneasily stirring the chilled blades of grass beneath him. "In such a case, what is it I could not do? Molly, will you not take pity on me? Will you not give me a chance?" "I cannot. Why will you persist? I tell you, if we two were to live forever, you are the very last man I should ever love. It is the kindest thing I can do for you to speak thus plainly." "Kind!"--bitterly; "_can_ you be kind? With your fair, soft face, and your angel eyes, you are the most bitterly cruel woman I ever met in my life. I curse the day I first saw you! You have ruined my happiness." "Philip, do not speak like that. You cannot mean it. In a few short months you will forget you have ever uttered such words,--or felt them. See, now,"--laying the tips of her fingers kindly upon his arm,--"put away from you this miserable fancy, and I will be your friend--if you will." "Friend!" retorts he, roughly. "Who that had seen and loved you could coldly look upon you as a friend? Every thought of my heart, every action of my life, has you mixed up in it. Your face is burned into my brain. I live but in recollection of you, and you speak to me of friendship! I tell you," says Philip, almost reducing himself again to calmness through intensity of emotion, "I am fighting for my very existence. I must and will have you." "Why will you talk so wildly?"--turning a little pale, and retreating a step: "you know what you propose, to be impossible."