"Certainly too much, madam, in any common case," said he, quite unmoved. "Certainly too much, if I asked you for it, as I do not, as the token of an affection which I know well you do not, cannot feel. But--take my words as they stand--were you to--It would be returned if I die, in a few weeks; and returned still sooner if I live. And, madam," said he lowering his voice, "I vow to you, before Him who sees us both, that, as far as I am concerned, no human being shall ever know of the fact." Frank had at last touched the wrong chord. "What, Mr. Headley? Can you think that I am to have secrets in common with you, or with any other man? No, sir! If I granted your request, I should avow it as openly as I shall refuse it." And she turned sharply toward the door. Frank Headley was naturally a shy man: but extreme need sometimes bestows on shyness a miraculous readiness--(else why, in the long run, do the shy men win the best wives? which is a fact, and may be proved by statistics, at least as well as anything else can) so he quietly stepped to Valencia's side, and said in a low voice-- "You cannot avow the refusal half as proudly as I shall avow the request, if you will but wait till your sister's return. Both are unnecessary, I think: but it will only be an honour to me to confess, that, poor curate as I am--" "Hush!" and Valencia walked quietly up to the table, and began turning over the leaves of a book, to gain time for her softened heart and puzzled brain. In five minutes Frank was beside her again. The book was Tennyson's "Princess." She had wandered--who can tell why?--to that last exquisite scene, which all know; and as Valencia read, Frank quietly laid a finger on the book, and arrested her eyes at last-- "If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream. Stoop down, and seem to kiss me ere I die!" Valencia shut the book up hurriedly and angrily. A moment after she had made up her mind what to do, and with the slightest gesture in the world, motioned Frank proudly and coldly to follow her back into the window. Had she been a country girl, she would have avoided the ugly matter; but she was a woman of the world enough to see that she must, for her own sake and his, talk it out reasonably. "What do you mean, Mr. Headley? I must ask! You told me just now that you had no intention of making love to me." "I told you the truth," said he, in his quiet impassive voice. "I fixed on these lines as a _pis aller_; and they have done all and more than I wished, by bringing you back here for at least a moment." "And do you suppose--you speak like a rational man, therefore, I must treat you as one--that I can grant your request?"