He fell on his knees as he spoke, and laid his head on her lap, sobbing like a child who had offended his mother. He almost cried again as he told me this. Marion half started to her feet in confusion, almost in terror, for she had never seen such emotion in a man; but the divine compassion of her nature conquered: she sat down again, took his head in her hands, and began stroking his hair as if she were indeed a mother seeking to soothe and comfort her troubled child. She was the first to speak again, for Roger could not command himself. "I'm very sorry, Roger," she said. "I must be to blame somehow." "To blame!" he cried, lifting up his head. "_You_ to blame for my folly! But it's not folly," he added impetuously: "it would be downright stupidity not to love you with all my soul." "Hush! hush!" said Marion, in whose ears his language sounded irreverent. "You _couldn't_ love me with all your soul if you would. God only _can_ be loved with all the power of the human soul." "If I love him at all, Marion, it is you who have taught me. Do not drive me from you--lest--lest--I should cease to love him, and fall back into my old dreary ways." "It's a poor love to offer God,--love for the sake of another," she said very solemnly. "But if it's all one has got?" "Then it won't do, Roger. I wish you loved me for God's sake instead. Then all would be right. That would be a grand love for me to have." "Don't drive me from you, Marion," he pleaded. It was all he could say. "I will not drive you from me. Why should I?" "Then I may come and see you again?" "Yes: when you please." "You _don't_ mean I may come as often as I like?" "Yes--when I have time to see you." "Then," cried Roger, starting to his feet with clasped hands, "--perhaps--is it possible?--you will--you will let me love you? O my God!" "Roger," said Marion, pale as death, and rising also; for, alas! the sunshine of her kindness had caused hopes to blossom whose buds she had taken only for leaves, "I thought you understood me! You spoke as if you understood perfectly that that could never be which I must suppose you to mean. Of course it cannot. I am not my own to keep or to give away. I belong to this people,--my friends. To take personal and private duties upon me, would be to abandon them; and how dare I? You don't know what it would result in, or you would not dream of it. Were I to do such a thing, I should hate and despise and condemn myself with utter reprobation. And then what a prize you would have got, my poor Roger!" But even these were such precious words to hear from her lips! He fell again on his knees before her as she stood, caught her hands, and, hiding his face in them, poured forth the following words in a torrent,--