"Agnes!... you love another!" suddenly exclaimed Frederick, his face becoming crimson.... "There is no other way of accounting for such cold indifference, such hard insensibility." Agnes coloured as violently in her turn, and bursting into tears, said with great displeasure, "That is what nobody in the world has a right to say to me, and I will never, if I can help it, permit you to say it again." She now increased her speed, and had nearly reached the Misses Peters, notwithstanding all the beautiful summer flowers they had found by the way's side; saying no more in reply, either to the remonstrances or the passionate pleadings of Mr. Stephenson, when at length he laid his hand upon her arm, and detained her while he said, "Agnes, if you accept my love, and consent to become my wife, I will release you from the power of your aunt, place you in a splendid home, and surround you with friends as pure-minded and as elegant as yourself. Is this nothing?... Answer me then one word, and one word only.... Is your refusal of my hand and my affection final?" "Yes, sir," said Agnes, still weeping; for his accusation of her having another love, continued to ring in her ears, and make her heart swell almost to bursting. "Speak not in anger, Agnes!..." said he mildly. "What I have felt for you does not deserve such a return." "I know it, I know it," replied Agnes, weeping more violently still, "and I am very wrong, as well as very unhappy. Pray, Mr. Stephenson, forgive me," and she held out her hand to him. He took it, and held it for a moment between both his. "Unhappy, Agnes?..." he said, "why should you be unhappy? Oh! if my love, my devotion, could render you otherwise!... But you will not trust me?... You will not let me pass my life in labouring to make yours happy?" "Nothing can make me happy, Mr. Stephenson; pray do not talk any more about it, for indeed, indeed, I cannot be your wife." He abruptly raised her hand to his lips, and then let it fall. "May Heaven bless and make you happy in your own way, whatever that may be!" he cried, and turning from her, reached the verge of the declivity that overhung the river, then plunging down it with very heedless haste, he was out of sight immediately. This was a catastrophe wholly unexpected by Miss Peters, who now hastened to meet the disconsolate-looking Agnes. "What in the world can you have said to him, my dear, to send him off in that style? I trust that you have not quarrelled." Most unfeignedly distressed and embarrassed was Agnes at this appeal, and the more so because her friend Mary was not alone.... To her perhaps she might have been able to tell the terrible adventure which had befallen her, but before Elizabeth it was impossible; and, pressing Mary's arm, she said in a whisper, "Ask me no questions, dearest Mary, now, for I cannot answer them ... wait only till we get home."