'You cannot be in earnest!'
'Not in earnest! By heavens, Miss Staveley, no man who has said the same words was ever more in earnest. Do you doubt me when I tell you that I love you?'
'Oh, I am so sorry!' And then she hid her face upon the arm of the sofa and burst into tears.
Peregrine stood there, like a prisoner on his trial, waiting for a verdict. He did not know how to plead his cause with any further language; and indeed no further language could have been of any avail. The judge and jury were clear against him, and he should have known the sentence without waiting to have it pronounced in set terms. But in plain words he had made his offer, and in plain words he required that an answer should be given to him. 'Well,' he said, 'will you not speak to me? Will you not tell me whether it shall be so?'
'No,—no,—no,' she said.
'You mean that you cannot love me,' And as he said this the agony of his tone struck her ear and made her feel that he was suffering. Hitherto she had thought only of herself, and had hardly recognized it as a fact that he could be thoroughly in earnest.
'Mr. Orme, I am very sorry. Do not speak as though you were angry with me. But———'
'But you cannot love me?' And then he stood again silent, for there was no reply. 'Is it that, Miss Staveley, that you mean to answer? If you say that with positive assurance, I will trouble you no longer.' Poor Peregrine! He was but an unskilled lover!
'No!' she sobbed forth through her tears; but he had so framed his question that he hardly knew what No meant.
'Do you mean that you cannot love me, or may I hope that a day will come———. May I speak to you again———?'
'Oh, no, no! I can answer you now. It grieves me to the heart. I know you are so good. But, Mr. Orme———'
'Well—'
'It can never, never be.'
'And I must take that as answer?'
'I can make no other.' He still stood before her,—with gloomy and almost angry brow, could she have seen him; and then he thought he would ask her whether there was any other love which had brought about her scorn for him. It did not occur to him, at the first moment, that in doing so he would insult and injure her.
'At any rate I am not flattered by a reply which is at once so decided,' he began by saying.
'Oh! Mr. Orme, do not make me more unhappy———'
'But perhaps I am too late. Perhaps———' Then he remembered himself and paused. 'Never mind,' he said, speaking to
