"I do like. But I want you to look ahead to something else--to another future than taking care of your uncle’s house." My heart thumped in my breast, and I felt a throb in my throat playing strange tricks with my voice. In the instant I thought of all that I had put at stake, and wished I had not begun. But with an effort of will I continued: "I want you to think of another future. I love you more than all the world, and I want you to be my wife." She walked silently by my side, neither increasing her distance nor drawing nearer to me. But she walked on and spoke no word, and I fell into a panic over the boldness that had inspired me to my avowal. We had proceeded thus for two or three blocks before I plucked up the courage to ask: "And what is the answer?" She kept her head down, but replied with a trace of drollery in her tone: "It wasn’t a question. And there isn’t any answer." "I’ll make it a question then." She looked quickly up into my face. "It wouldn’t do any good if you did. Anybody can ask questions, but it takes a very wise person to answer them." "But," I pleaded, looking into her eyes till she cast them down once more, "it means everything to me, and--" "I know all that you would say," she interrupted. "But how can I think of such a thing when I have so much that must be done--so many uncertainties to face?" She laid her hand appealingly on my arm, and looked up into my face again. Then she continued: "My uncle is perhaps dying. I don’t have to tell you how all his affairs are in confusion. And you are the friend I have most to look to for help and counsel. You won’t take my chiefest reliance away from me, will you?" Her appealing look and tone were too much for me. It was a very quiet place on a very quiet street, and the dusk had fallen almost to darkness; so I yielded to the impulse and stopped and kissed her. She did not resist, but drew a quick breath that was almost a gasp, and lowered her eyes. Then she said quietly: "There--all that is to be put away with the things that were. And you’re to think of all you have said as something that came in a dream. And now we’ll wake up and look to the serious business of life. It isn’t such a very pleasant season of life is it?" Her voice broke a little as she ended and my heart smote me. "I hope," I said, "that I don’t have to tell you that you can depend on me for every service that I have power to give." She took my arm again with an air of confidence. "You are always to be my good friend," she said. "And now we’ll go back. It’s getting dark, and maybe the fresh air wasn’t what I wanted after all. I’m a bit upset." I felt somewhat upset myself. I was certainly left hanging in a most uncertain and unsatisfactory position; but I saw no way to better it, and held my tongue, and wondered with a jealous pang if Baldwin had, after all, won the prize I coveted. We walked on in silence for a time, but at last she suddenly said: