"Margaret," I cried, "forgive me, if I have forced myself upon you, but I have no courage to endure longer. You have heard that all hope for the French arms is now virtually at an end, and I must know what lies before me." "That must rest with you," she answered, in the same calm tone which had so upset me in our last meeting. "Then, Margaret, I am here to plead my own cause," I answered, firmly, determined not to be swayed by any passing mood, "and I plead _in forma pauperis_, for I have no one to rely on save myself, and no hope save in you." "You must not count upon me," she returned, calmly. "I cannot acknowledge that you have any claim upon me." "I have the claim which comes from your own affection, Margaret. You loved me once, and in the strength of that love I stand to-day. In the name of that love I ask you to hear me." "That is a thing of the past. You have no right to presume upon it now." "Is it presumption for one who has lived in such loneliness as I, to hold to the one bright day of his life? There is no past for the heart." "I will not argue the point," she answered, coldly; "but there is a past I have shut out of mine." "You may try to persuade yourself you have, Margaret, but it will come back when you think it most banished. I know of what I speak, for when I thought I had buried a past that was torture to me to recall, it has awakened me to nights of hopeless regrets and empty longings; it has stood beside me, unsummoned, when most alone, and has started into life at some chance word or token, when in company. The more you try to live it down, the more you create a haunting memory to fill your hours with bitterness." "Then I will meet it with other strength than my own. I have resolved to enter the Community." "So I feared. What do you hope to gain by so doing?" "I will gain work, and rest--and peace." "No, Margaret, you will not gain peace. Listen to me. I know you better than you know yourself! You will find work, you may find rest, of a kind, but what peace will come to you even though you are shut in safe from the chance evils of life, when you think of one who has loved as faithfully, but without the same hope as yourself, wandering, a broken man, because you refused him admittance to the happiness you alone could offer." "Do you think it fair to try me by such an appeal? You know I can never be indifferent to your fate. You know I have thought for you even above myself," she said, with a tremor in her voice she could not entirely suppress.