What she felt he could only guess; but it was clearly none of those emotions he might have expected to arouse. It was not embarrassment, it was not dismay; the look on her face was one of angry wonder. He felt his cheeks pale under the steady glance with which she regarded him, and he was aware of a swift sense of pity for himself. Had he waited and struggled for this! After the years of patient devotion he had rendered her, was she so unmoved in the presence of his love; did it mean so little to her! “You know it now!” he said in a low voice. Even as he spoke, he was conscious that the angry wonder in her eyes changed to a look that was almost one of contempt; and the colour surged back into his face, until his cheeks burned with it. But her quite evident scorn of him served to rouse him. He met her glance with a look of quick resentment that she understood, and liked him none the less that he had been so ready to summon it. “I think you are mistaken, Mr. Benson, you don't really wish me to stay. I'd better go.” She spoke coldly, but with a certain latent pity in her tone. “Yes,” he said doggedly, “I do wish you to remain, I do wish to speak to you! I have waited, I have hoped the time would come when I might—” “It is not now. It will never come,” she said slowly. “You have been very good, always—I am grateful to you. Be content with that; don't force me to say more than this, please, for I cannot listen to you with patience.” “No, that won't suffice!” he persisted; roused by something in her manner to a stubborn determination to be heard, no matter what the consequences. “I haven't struggled to win your gratitude. That won't suffice, unless it leads to something else.” “What more have you expected?” she asked quietly. But he was not misled by her restraint. “What does a man expect when his heart has gone out of his keeping—” “Don't!” she cried quickly, putting up her hands as though to ward off something. “Don't! How can you!” “Why not?” he asked. “Every man says it sooner or later to some woman; and every woman hears it sooner or later from the lips of some man!” “You must not!” she repeated. “I have waited, I have tried to be patient; don't give me your answer now! If it is no, it will leave me nothing! I have lived and struggled for this day; that I might tell you that I love you! You may not be ready to hear it—I did not intend to speak; nothing could have been further from my purpose ten minutes ago; but I have spoken, and you know that I love you. This love seems to go back to the very beginnings of my life—I don't want to think of a time when I did not love you; it seems impossible to even imagine such a time, as impossible as to imagine a future when I shall have ceased to love you! You may not value my love, but it is as much yours as any other possession you have in the world!”