“Mr.--Rob! oh, what must you think of me that you say so? Do I care for money or for a house? Are you going away? Are you going to--leave me? oh!” cried Margaret, penitent, clasping her hands; “did you not know I had a fortune? But what does that matter? You have been kind, very kind to me, thinking I was poor--Rob! are you going to cry, you!--no, don’t, don’t; you will break my heart! I am calling you by your name now,” she said, anxiously, with one hand upon his arm, and with the other pulling down the hand which covered his face. She put her own face close to his in her generous, foolish earnestness--“I am calling you by your name now, Rob; don’t hide your face from me, don’t go away and leave me. If I am rich, is it not all the better? There will be plenty for us both.” “It makes a difference,” he said; and indeed he was able to play his part very well, for never before in his life had Rob been so entirely ashamed of himself. Her very earnestness, she who had been so cool and calm before, her generous trouble and importunity humbled him to the very depths. A man may do a great many things that will not bear examination before he finds himself out; but to act such a falsehood as this--to pretend that he did not know what he knew so much more definitely than she did--to pretend to resist her generous anxiety--to avert his face, and let her woo him, she who had taken his hot wooing with such shy coldness! This made Rob feel himself the most wretched creature, the most despicable, miserable, mercenary wretch. He could not endure himself. Well might he hide his face for a poor swindler and cheat, worse, far worse than he had ever known himself before! To breathe deceitful vows, to say more than he meant, to promise more than he intended to perform, all this was not a thousandth part so bad; for indeed he had always been “in love,” when he made love; and a promise more or less, what is that? The common coin of young deceivers. Hitherto Rob had not been bad, only fickle and false. But what was he now? A cheat, a liar, a traitor, unfit to breathe where such innocent creatures were. Thus he played his part very well; his misery was not dissembled; and when he allowed himself to yield to her entreaties, to be moved by the eager eloquence of that soft lip which was so ready to quiver, what vows he made in his heart to be to Margaret something more than ever man had been before!