"Miss Etheridge, I think you can guess what it is I want to say, and I hope that you will not think any the less of me because of my inability to say it as it should be said, as I would have it said. Stella, if you look back, if you will recall the times since first we met, you cannot fail to know my meaning." She turned her face toward him for a moment, and shook her head. "You mean that I have no right to think so. Do you think that you, a woman, have not seen what every woman sees so quickly when it is the case--that I have learned to love you!" The word was out at last, and as it left him he trembled. Stella did not start, but her face went paler than before, and she shrank slightly. "Yes," he went on, "I have learned to love you. I think I loved you the first evening we met; I was not sure then, and--I will tell you the whole truth, I have sworn to myself that I would do it--I tried to fight against it. I am not a man easily given to love; no, I am a man of the world--one who has to make his way in the world, one who has an ambition; and I tried to put you from my thoughts--I tried hard, but I failed." He paused, and eyed her watchfully. Her face was like a mask of stone. "I grew to love you more day by day--I was not happy away from you. I carried your image up with me to London--it came between me and my work; but I was patient--I told myself that I should gain nothing by being too rash--that I must give you time to know me, and to--to love me." He paused and moistened his lips, and looked at her. Why did she not speak--of what was she thinking? At that moment, if he could but have known it, she was thinking of her true lover--of the young lord who had not waited and calculated, but who had poured the torrent of his passionate love at her feet--had taken her in his arms and made her love him. And as she thought, how small, how mean this other man seemed to her! "I gave you mine--I meant to give you more," he continued; "I want to do something worthy of your love. I am--I am not a rich man, Stella--I have no title--as yet----" Stella's eyes flashed for a moment, and her lips closed. It was an unlucky speech for him. "No, not yet; but I shall have riches and title--I have set my mind on them, and there is nothing that I have set my mind on that I have not got, or will not get--nothing!" he repeated, with almost fierce intensity. Still she did not speak. Like a bird charmed, fascinated by a snake, she stood, listening though every word was torture to her. "I have set my mind on winning your love, Stella. I love you as few men love, with all my heart and soul. There is nothing I would not do to win you, there is nothing I would--pause at." A faint shudder stole through her; and he saw it, and added, quickly: "I would do anything to make you happy--move heaven and earth to see you always smiling as you smiled this morning. Stella, I love you! What have you to say to me?"