"I do not doubt it; I hope you will be able to bear whatever you intend to put upon yourself, but you will do well not to overtask your strength or fortitude just now; you are not at not at present fit for exertion. But I forget"---- I rose, and held out my hand; he went on: "You know you have always my best wishes; there is no need for me to say that." "I know it, sir," I replied, with what steadiness of voice I could. "I wish I could tell you how"----but the words choked me. He did not relinquish my hand, but with a sudden change from the cold tone of his last words, he exclaimed hurriedly, and with a smothered vehemence: "You wish you could tell me what? You wish you could tell me what I already know--could tell me that you pity me--that you are sorry for the pain you give me? That you know how much it costs me to say a final farewell to you--and that you are sorry--sorry. No! You need not wish to do it; I can spare you that. I came to you to-night to see if time, and sorrow, and necessity had not helped me in my suit; to try, for the last time, whether there was any chance of winning you; I came to tempt you by the fortune and the luxury I could offer you, just to endure my love, and to repay, by ever so cold a kindness, the devotion of years. I came, misled by a hope held out by one who loved us both too well to be an impartial judge; and I find you colder, more distant than ever, and that the hope I have been trying to extinguish so long is only rekindled to be quenched at last utterly! "Foolish girl!" he went on, in a lower tone, "how little you know what you throw away. How vain to cling so fondly to a memory. Believe me, it will not be wronging the dead--I little thought I should ever stoop to ask it, but only try to love me--only consent to give me your esteem and consideration, and I will take the risk of teaching you to love me. Is it nothing to be loved as I have loved you? To be the first, and last, and only choice of a man who has had so many to choose from? Have you no vanity that can be touched--no pride? If you had, I could allure you by the promise that you should be proud of the position you would hold; those who have slighted you should look at you with envy--those who"---- "Oh, Mr. Rutledge do not talk of those things now--I have given them up forever; I shall never care again for the world--but--there is something else--I"---- "You relent!" he murmured, eagerly. "You will consent to forget the past--you will"---- "I must tell you one thing first; I must tell you something that I have told to no one else. Heaven have mercy on me if it is a sin, or if I am betraying what I should still conceal. I never felt the love you think I did. I deceived him and you; but as I have been bitterly punished, and bitterly penitent, so Heaven forgive me for it! Between him and me there was another love, that began before I ever saw him--that is not ended yet--that has never known change or wavering." "And that love?"