looking into her face with earnest scrutinising eyes; "but if you do not
love me, if you cannot love me--and God knows how happy I have been in
the belief that I had won your love long ago--let the word be spoken. I
will bear it, my dear, I will bear it."

"O no, no," she cried, shocked by the dead whiteness of his face, and
bursting into tears. "I will try to be worthy of you. I will try to love
you as you deserve to be loved. It was only a fancy of mine that it would
be better for you to be free from all thoughts of me. I think it would
seem very hard to me to lose your love. I don't think I could bear that,
Gilbert."

She looked up at him with an appealing expression through her tears--an
innocent, half-childish look that went to his heart--and he clasped her
to his breast, believing that this proposal to set him free had been
indeed nothing more than a girlish caprice.

"My dearest, my life is bound up with your love," he said. "Nothing can
part us except your ceasing to love me."




CHAPTER VII.

"GOOD-BYE."


The hour for the final parting came at last, and Gilbert Fenton turned
his back upon the little gate by which he had watched Marian Nowell