Emily threw herself, sobbing, into Oswald's arms. "Oh, let me always stay with you! let me always stay with you! let me never go back to my house! I will not see him again! he shall never again touch my hand. I have never loved him, you know! Oh, Oswald, have pity on me! let me not suffer so terribly for something I did, after all, but from passionate love for you!" "Poor, unhappy child," whispered Oswald, pressing her tenderly to his heart, "poor unhappy child; and unhappy through me! That is the bitterest part! Emily, sweet one, dear one, don't cry so! Your sobbing tears my heart. Leave the man who has already made you so unhappy, and who can do nothing but make you still unhappier. Forget that you ever saw him! Go back to your husband! You will not be happy with him; but who is happy in this world? You will get accustomed to him, as man gets accustomed to everything at last. And thus the stream of life will roll on quietly, a little stormy perhaps in the beginning, but gradually more slowly and lazily, until it falls finally into the Dead Sea of stolid resignation. Oh God! oh God! Come, Emily, it is of no avail to pity one another. The night is cold; your hair, your clothes, are as wet from the falling mist as your face from your tears. You must go home." He placed his arm around her waist, and led her back the way they had come. Emily suffered it all. Her suppressed sobbing ceased after a while; she seemed to comprehend the helplessness of her situation. But suddenly, when they had reached the bridge which led out of the park, she stopped, seized both of Oswald's hands, and said with a low firm voice: "I have considered it, and it is so. I will not live without you henceforth, since I know how glorious life is with you. If you cannot love me, I conjure you by all that is sacred to you, tell me. I will not say a word in reply--not a word. I will not cry--not complain. You shall not be troubled by me. I know what I shall do then." "Emily!" "No--let me finish. I tell you I will not live without you. If you do not love me, it must be a matter of indifference to you what becomes of me. But if you love me, then you must feel that we must be united in one way or another. How that can be done, I do not see yet; but I shall reflect upon it and you will reflect upon it, and we will find a way. Now tell me: Do you love me? or do you not love me?" "I love you!" said Oswald; and he really believed at that moment what he was saying.