"John, this is the second time that you have brought up my fortune to-day. There is no need to answer such a question." "But I beg--I desire--I insist upon knowing," he cried passionately. "You have your answer in the fact that you are standing before me talking as you are. If I believed for an instant that you had such sordid thoughts, our engagement would be at an end. I would sooner give you the money than be your wife." "Of course, yes: of course, my own dear, noble girl!" he cried excitedly. "Then why all this waiting--why keep me at arm's length? Come now, darling, let us settle it at once." "No, John," she said calmly. "I cannot yet consent." "Your old excuse," he cried, striding up and down the room. "I never held out hopes to you that it would be soon," she replied; and I felt that she must be looking at him wistfully. "But why--why all this waiting, dear?" he said, evidently struggling with his anger, and striving to speak calmly. "I have told you again and again, dear John, my sole reason." "And what is that?" he said bitterly; "it must have been so trifling that I forget it." "You do not forget it, indeed," she said tenderly. "I ask you to wait, because I wish, when I marry you, to be sure that I am offering you a true and loving wife." "Oh, if that's all," he said laughingly, "I'm satisfied as you are; and on my soul, Miriam, I wish you had not a penny, so that all ideas of self-interest might be set aside!" "They are set aside, dear John," she said calmly. "Well then, love, let there be an end to this miserable waiting and disappointment. If I did not know thoroughly your sweet disposition, and that you are so far above all silly coquettish ways, I should say that you were trifling with me, to make me more eager for the day." "You know me better." "I do, my darling," he said in a low impassioned voice, which I heard quite plainly, though I had gone to the window and was looking out into the street. "Then let us settle it at once. I am in your hands, Miriam, as I have been from the day I first set eyes upon you. At present I am wretched--miserable--my whole thoughts are of you, and I feel at times half-mad--that I cannot wait. Do you wish to torture me?" "No." "Then be my dear honoured wife in a week's time--a fortnight? What, still shaking your head? Well, then, there: I am the most patient of lovers--in a month from to-day?" "No, no, I cannot," she said; and in place of being so calm she spoke now passionately. "You must wait, dear John, you must wait." "Then there is something," he cried, in a low, angry voice. "Some wretch has been maligning me." "Indeed no." "You have been told that I am wasteful and a spendthrift?" "I should not have listened to any such charge." "Then that I am weak, and untrustworthy, and gay?" "I should have told anyone who hinted such a thing that it was a lie." "Then," he cried hoarsely, "there is some one else; you have seen some one you like better!"