could not ask for anything more complete."

"Trample on me--I deserve it," she faltered.

After a moment's pause, he resumed: "I have no wish to trample
on you. I came here with as much loyalty and homage as ever a man
brought to a woman in any age. I have offered you any test of my
love and truth that you might ask. What more could a man do? As soon
as I knew what you were to me, I sought your father's permission
to win you, and I told you my secret in every tone and glance. If
your whole nature shrunk from me, as I see it does, you could have
told me the truth months since, and I should have gone away honoring
you as a true-hearted, honest girl, who would scorn the thought of
deceiving and misleading an earnest man. You knew I did not belong
to the male-flirt genus. When a man from some sacred impulse of his
nature would give his very life to make a woman happy, is it too
much to ask that she should not deliberately, and for mere amusement,
wreck his life? If she does not want his priceless gift, a woman
with your tact could have revealed the truth by one glance, by one
inflection of a tone. Not that I should have been discouraged so
easily, but I should have accepted an unspoken negative long since
with absolute respect. But now--" and he made a gesture eloquent
with protest and despair.

"But now," she said, wearily, "I see it all in the light in which
you put it. Be content; you have spoiled my life as truly as I have
yours."

"Yes, for this evening. There will be only one less in your
drawing-room when you return."