"You _must!_" she says, eagerly. "You must explain to her, as you tried to do last night, that what happened then" (a painful blush) "is no possible reason why her engagement to you should be broken off. You must convince her of this--you must, indeed; for my sake _you must!_" He looks down, frowning heavily. "When a galley-slave's chains have been knocked off, must he handcuff himself again?" "Why did you handcuff yourself at first?" she asks, with impulsive vehemence. "Whose doing was it but your own? What madness first impelled you to ask her to marry you?" "Because," he answers, with emotion, fixing his upbraiding eyes upon her--"because I was smarting miserably under the blow you had just given me--you, who had made me mistrust everything attractive, and womanly, and innocent-seeming. I was obliged to marry some one; that is one of the many curses attached to being an eldest son, and the last male heir of an inconveniently old family. I said to myself, 'She is too dull to deceive me, too passionless to disgrace me.' I chose her because she was, of all the women I knew, the one least capable of calling forth emotion of any kind whatever in me--consequently, the one most powerless to make me suffer." The words of his defence came quick and hurried. She is silent for a moment; then, uplifting imploring eyes to his: "Mr. Gerard," she says, tremblingly, "the twenty-four hours you asked me to allow you yesterday are nearly expired: have you come to say 'good-bye' to me? If so, it is well; you remember your promise?" "I remember it," he answers, slowly, "and I am prepared to--_break_ it. Don't look so reproachful, Esther! I am ready to make you as good a one instead. I am ready to swear," he says, his face all kindling in the grey cold morning with eager passion--"I am ready to swear to you that I will never leave you again, unless you send me away, until death do us part. Will that promise do as well as the other?" She gives a little cry of astonishment. "What do you mean?" she asks, faintly, moving a step farther away from him. "I mean," he says, solemnly, his countenance all shining with the light of a great new joy, "that I am sick of my life without you, Esther; and you--you are sick of yours without me, aren't you?" She cannot deny it, and is unwilling to allow it; so keeps a troubled silence. "There must be some reason," he continues, passionately, "for your failing health, for your thin white cheeks, for your total loss of beauty" (with a smile), "as Constance tersely worded it yesterday. Am I right; or is it my conceit that makes me think that I have some concern in the change?" "You are mistaken," she cries, hastily--the idea that pity for her miserable appearance has brought him back to her flashing gallingly across her mind. "I was very fond of you--_very;_ it was a great grief to me when you threw me away from you; but I could have done without you, if--if--I had not lost my boy."