“Then you will not marry now, Mildred?” said Arthur, after a pause.

“No, Arthur.”

“No one?”

“No one, Arthur.”

He rose, and, leaning over the railing of the verandah, looked at the sea. The mist that hid it was drifting and eddying hither and thither before little puffs of wind, and the clear sky was clouding up.

“There is going to be a storm,” he said, presently.

“Yes, I think so, the air feels like it.”

He hesitated a while, and looked down at her. She seemed very lovely in the half lights, as indeed she was. She, too, looked up at him inquiringly. At last he spoke.

“Mildred, you said just now that you would not marry anybody. Will you make an exception?— will you marry me?”

It was her turn to pause now.

“You are very good,” she murmured.

“No, I am not at all good. You know how the case stands. You know that I still love Angela, and that I shall in all probability always love her. I cannot help that. But if you will have me, Mildred, I will try to be a good husband to you, and to make you happy. Will you marry me, dear?”

“No, Arthur.”

“Why not? Have you, then, ceased to care for me?”

“No, dear. I love you more than ever. You cannot dream how much I do love you.”

“Then why will you not marry me? Is it because of this business?”

“No,” and raising herself in the low chair, she looked at him with intense earnestness, “that is not the reason. I will not marry you, because I have become a better woman since you went away, because I do not wish to ruin your life. You ask me to do so now in all sincerity, but you do not know what you ask. You come from the scene of as bitter a disappointment as can befall a man, and you are a little touched by the contrasting warmth of your reception here, a little moved by my evident interest, and perhaps a little influenced by my good looks, though they are nothing much. Supposing that I consented, supposing I said, ‘Arthur, I will put my hand in yours and be your wife,’ and that we were married tomorrow, do you think, when the freshness of the thing had worn off, that you would be happy with me? I do not. You would soon get horribly tired of me, Arthur, for the little leaven that leavens the whole lump is wanting. You do not love me; and the redundance of my affection would weary you, and, for my part, I should find it difficult to continually struggle against an impalpable rival, though, indeed, I should be very willing to put up with that.”

“I am sorry you think so.”

“Yes, Arthur, I do think so; but you do not know what it costs me to say it. I am deliberately shutting the door which bars me from my heaven; I am throwing away the chance I strove so hard to win. That will tell you how much I think it. Do you know, I must be a strange contradiction. When I knew you were engaged to another woman, I strained my every nerve to win you from her. While the object was still to be gained, I felt no compunction; I was fettered by no scruples. I wanted to steal you from her and marry you myself. But now that all this is changed, and that you of your own free will come and offer to make me your wife, I for the first time feel how wrong it would be of me to take advantage of you in a moment of pique and disappointment, and bind you for life to a nature which you do not really understand, to a violent and a jealous wo............