"Queenie, do not be cruel to me again," he pleaded, carried away by the rush of his wild passion. "If you knew how I have wearied for you since you went away, how blank my life has been, you could not be so cruel! You would give yourself to me out of sheer pity and tenderness." "But I do not love you," she said. "I will teach you to love me, Queenie. I love you so well that I could not help winning your love in return if you only gave me the privilege to try. Say yes, my beautiful darling, and make me the happiest of men!" She sat still with her head bowed and her hands locked together in her lap like one thinking intently. At length she said, without lifting her head to look at him: "I do not believe I can make you happy, Captain Ernscliffe, but I will be your wife if you want me." * * * * * When the reception was over and the guests all gone, Queenie sought her father and found him alone in the library. "Papa," she said, abruptly, laying her hand on his arm. "Captain Ernscliffe has proposed to me again!" "You refused him, of course, Queenie," he answered, looking at her with the grave sadness that always rested on his features now. Her eyes fell, and a crimson flush crept slowly over her features, but she answered steadily: "_Au contraire_, papa, I have accepted him." "Queenie!" "Papa!" "Why have you acted thus? You do not love him?" "No, papa, but it will be a fine match for me!" she answered, with a hard little laugh, and a slight ring of sarcasm in her voice. He looked at her almost angrily. "Queenie, I have never intended--never contemplated the possibility of a marriage for you--since--since you came back home. I took you back and forgave you, kept your secret, and forced your mother and sisters to receive you and overlook that dreadful blank year whose secret I would not reveal to them. But I cannot--you must not expect it--allow you to deceive an honest man." "Oh, papa! papa!" she fell on her knees and looked up at him imploringly, "for sweet pity's sake, have mercy on me! Keep my secret and let me marry Captain Ernscliffe! I need another home--mamma and the girls are so cold and hard to me--I will be a good wife to him--I will indeed! He shall never know." "Ah, Queenie, if your sin should find you out!" he said. "It will not, it _cannot_," she said, with a shudder; "it is buried _too deep_. And I have prayed--oh, how I have prayed, papa--and God has forgiven me!" "God has forgiven you, but _men_ would not," he said. "_You_ forgave me, papa." "Because you had been sinned against, and because I love you so dearly, and pitied you also. But, Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe would recoil from you in horror if he knew what I know." "Papa, he shall _never_ know," she cried, clasping his knees with her round, white arms, and lifting her wild, streaming eyes to his face. "I will try to make him happy; and he wants me so very much. You will only make him unhappy if you come between us."