She looked so wildly as she spoke that the suspicion of insanity again flashed across the doctor's mind, but he felt that whatever this burden of hers might be, it could only increase the vehemence of his love by deepening his pity. "Mary!" he said, "this love is too great a matter to be trifled with. We must understand each other. Are you right in throwing this love of mine away? Oh think! if you do love me--and I sometimes half believe you do--is it right to allow this fearful something whatever it is to separate us? Why, what should separate us? If you have any great sorrow, if you are persecuted by any enemy, if there is any horrible secret that torments you, so much the more reason that you should allow the one who loves you, and whom you love, to help you, to defend you, and ward these off. Mary! Mary! believe me, you said the other day that I should loathe you did I know what this secret of yours was. Believe me, whatever it was, I could do no less than feel for you the more, love you the more. For heaven's sake, Mary! let nothing stand between us." She looked at him with a terrified air, and said, "And supposing that I had committed some abominable crime--what then?" "What then? I should protect you, fold you to my arms, and help to soften your bitter remorse into sweet repentance. I would share your agony and delight in doing so. Whatever this secret is, it would but deepen the sympathy between us. Oh, Mary! Love can cure every wound." "Oh, mercy!" she cried in tones of anguish. "Dr. Duncan! Dr. Duncan! do not talk to me like this. I shall go mad if you do. I tell you again I can never know love--never! never! I am the most miserable creature on earth, and I cannot tell you why." He seized her arm in his passion, and said in a voice fierce and tremulous: "Mary! Mary! this is all wrong. You are throwing away your whole life's happiness for an utterly false idea. Oh, my sweet love, tell me all! tell me all! I repeat from my heart, that nothing you could possibly disclose can lessen my affection. Put the idea altogether out of your mind that whatever you tell me can make any difference. Mary! were you the lowest of creatures, I would love you all the more. It would be all the sweeter to know that I had saved you. Whatever you are, I am your lover, your slave. Ah, Mary! with such a love as ours will be, we will be the happiest of people. In spite of anything that has been, you will be all the world to me until death, Mary!--until death." The man had made the girl's heart thrill responsive to his own great passion, and she could conceal this no longer. "Oh, spare me! spare me!" she whispered. "Then you do love me," he exclaimed. She closed her eyes as she spoke in a dreamy voice. "Oh, spare me! this will kill me. Oh, my love! for I do love you--as I can scarcely believe woman ever loved man before--you don't know what you ask."