“Now Mr. Birch,” she said, seating herself upon a lounge, “you may explain to me what this unaccountable behavior of yours means. I should hardly think I had deserved to be treated in this way by you.” Halfdan was utterly bewildered; a nervous fit of trembling ran through him, and he endeavored in vain to speak. He had been prepared for passionate reproaches, but this calm severity chilled him through, and he could only gasp and tremble, but could utter no word in his defense. “I suppose you are aware,” continued Edith, in the same imperturbable manner, “that if I had not interrupted you, the policeman would have heard you, and you would have been arrested for street disturbance. Then to-morrow we should have seen it in all the newspapers, and I should have been the laughing-stock of the whole town.” No, surely he had never thought of it in that light; the idea struck him as entirely new. There was a long pause. A cock crowed with a drowsy remoteness in some neighboring yard, and the little clock on the mantel-piece ticked on patiently in the moonlit dusk. “If you have nothing to say,” resumed Edith, while the stern indifference in her voice perceptibly relaxed, “then I will bid you good-night.” She arose, and with a grand sweep of her drapery, moved toward the door. “Miss Edith,” cried he, stretching his hands despairingly after her, “you must not leave me.” She paused, tossed her hair back with her hands, and gazed at him over her shoulder. He threw himself on his knees, seized the hem of her dress, and pressed it to his lips. It was a gesture of such inexpressible humility that even a stone would have relented. “Do not be foolish, Mr. Birch,” she said, trying to pull her dress away from him. “Get up, and if you have anything rational to say to me, I will stay and listen.” “Yes, yes,” he whispered, hoarsely, “I shall be rational. Only do not leave me.” She again sank down wearily upon the lounge, and looked at him in expectant silence. “Miss Edith,” pleaded he in the same hoarse, passionate undertone, “have pity on me, and do not despise me. I love you--oh--if you would but allow me to die for you, I should be the happiest of men.” Again he shuddered, and stood long gazing at her with a mute, pitiful appeal. A tear stole into Edith’s eye and trickled down over her cheek. “Ah, Mr. Birch,” she murmured, while a sigh shook her bosom, “I am sorry--very sorry that this misfortune has happened to you. You have deserved a better fate than to love me--to love a woman who can never give you anything in return for what you give her.” “Never?” he repeated mournfully, “never?”