"And if I did not reject you, as you say--if I accepted this love, this compensating truth and loyalty, which you offer me, what should I be, Laurence Alsager, but her compeer? Have you thought of that? Have you remembered that there is a law in marriage apart from and above all feeling? Have you considered what she who breaks that law is, in the sight of God, in the unquenchable light of her own conscience, though her conduct were as pure from stain as the ermine of a royal robe? I am speaking, not chilly, chilling moralities, but immortal, immutable truth. In the time to come you will remember it, and believe it; and then there will be no bitterness in your heart when you recollect how I bade you farewell!" The lustrous eyes looked into his with a gaze as pure as an infant's, as earnest as a sibyl's, and the gentle hand lay motionless upon his arm. "How you bade me farewell!" he repeated in a hoarse voice. "What do you mean? Are you sending me from you?" "Yes," she answered; "I am sending you from me. We have met once too often, and we must meet no more. You say you love me;" she shrunk and shivered again,--"and--and I believe you. Therefore you will obey me." "No," he said resolutely; "I will not obey you! I will see you,--I must. What is there in my love to frighten or to harm you? I ask for nothing which even your scrupulous conscience might hesitate to give; I seek no change in the relation that has subsisted between us for some time now." "Dreams, dreams," she said, sadly; "unworthy of your sense,--unworthy of your knowledge of the world. Nothing can ever replace us on our old footing. The words you have spoken to me can never be unsaid. They are words I never ought to have heard--and--" In a moment her firmness deserted her, her voice failed; she sank into a chair, and burst into passionate tears. "You would not have them unsaid!" he cried; "tell me that you would not! Tell me that the coldness and the calm which those streaming tears deny are not true, are not real! Tell me that I am something in your life,--that I might have been more! Dearest, I reverence as much as I love you; but give me that one gleam of comfort. It cannot make your heavenly rectitude and purity poorer, while to me it will be boundless riches. Tell me that you could love me if you would; tell me that the sacred barrier of your conscience is the only one between us! I swear I will submit to that! I will not try to shake or to remove it. Nay, more, I will leave you,--if indeed you persist in commanding my absence,--if only you will tell me that under other circumstances you would have loved me. Tell me this! I ask a great, a priceless boon; but I do ask it. Dearest, will you not answer me?" Her agitation, her tears, had reassured him, had broken the spell which her calmness had imposed. The hope that had come to him once or twice during their interview came again now, and stayed.