“Oh, don’t, doctor! Oh, don’t say so, don’t say so!” were the strange words that caught his ear at last; and then he shook himself up, so to speak, and saw her standing beside him in the gathering dimness of the twilight, her face not shining with any sweetness of assent, but half convulsed with pain and shame, her hands held up in entreaty, her lips giving forth these words, “Oh, don’t say so!” It was his turn to be struck dumb. He drew up before her with a sudden pause of consternation. “What?” he cried--“_what?_” not believing his ears. And thus they stood for a moment speechless, both of them. She had stopped him in the middle of his love tale, which he had told better and with more passion than he was himself sensible of. She had stopped him, and now she did not seem to have another word to say. “It is my anxiety which is getting too much for me,” he said. “You didn’t say that, Katherine--not that? You did not mean to interrupt me--to stop me? No. It is only that I am too much in earnest--that I am frightening myself----” “Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she cried, instinctively putting her hands together. “It is I who am to blame. Oh, do not be angry with me. Let us part friends. Don’t--don’t say that any more!” “Say what?--that I love you, that I want you to be my wife? Katherine, I have a right to say it! You have known for a long time that I was going to say it. I have been silent because of--for delicacy, for love’s sake; but you have known. I know that you have known!” he cried almost violently, though in a low voice. She had appealed to him like a frightened girl; now she had to collect her forces as a woman, with her dignity to maintain. “I will not contradict you,” she said. “I cannot; it is true. I can only ask you to forgive me. How could I stop you while you had not spoken? Oh no, I will not take that excuse. If it had been last night it might have been otherwise, but to-day I know better. I cannot--it is impossible! Don’t--oh don’t let us say any more.” “There is a great deal more to be said!” he cried. “Impossible! How is it impossible? Last night it would have been possible, but to-day---- You are playing with me, Katherine! Why should it be impossible to-day?” “Not from anything in you, Dr. Burnet,” she said; “from something in myself.” “From what in yourself? Katherine, I tell you you are playing with me! I deserve better at your hands.” “You deserve--everything!” she cried, “and I--I deserve nothing but that you should scorn me. But it is not my fault. I have found out. I have had a long time to think; I have seen things in a new light. Oh, accept what I say! It is impossible--impossible!” “Yet it was possible yesterday, and it may be possible to-morrow?” “No, never again!” she said. “Do you know,” said the doctor stonily, “that you have led me on, that you have given me encouragement, that you have given me almost a certainty?--and now to cast me off, without sense, without reason----”