shifting expressions.

"I am sensible of the honour," said he, "but hardly understand how
I have earned it."

Still that incomprehensible look of admiration continued to
illumine her face.

"I did not know I could ever think so well of you," she declared.
"If you do not take care, I shall end by loving you some day."

"Ah!" he ejaculated, his face contracting with sudden pain; "your
love, then, is but a potentiality. Very well, Amabel, keep it so
and you will be spared much misery. As for me, who have not been
as wise as you---"

"Frederick!" She had come so near he did not have the strength to
finish. Her face, with its indefinable charm, was raised to his,
as she dropped these words one by one from her lips in lingering
cadence: "Frederick--do you love me, then, so very much?"

He was angry; possibly because he felt his resolution failing him.
"You know!" he hotly began, stepping back. Then with a sudden
burst of feeling, that was almost like prayer, he resumed: "Do not
tempt me, Amabel. I have trouble enough, without lamenting the
failure of my first steadfast purpose."

"Ah!" she said, stopping where she was, but drawing him toward her
by every witchery of which her mobile features were capable; "your
generous impulse has strengthened into a purpose, has it? Well,