She stood straight and serious before him, white to the lips, her
heart as cold as ice.

"I love you, Graydon, with all my soul. I shall always love you.
Please, please, don't ask any more of me. You understand, don't you?
We cannot be as we once were--never. That is ended. But, you--you
must know that I love you."

"It is sheer madness, dearest, to take that attitude. What else in
the world matters so long as we love one another? I felt at first
that I could not ask you to be my wife after what my father did
that night. That was as silly of me as this is of you. I did not
contend long against my love. You have never been out of my mind,
night or day. I was tempted more than once to desert-but that was
impossible, you know. It was the terrible eagerness to go back to
you and compel you to be mine. My father did you a grave wrong.
He---"

"But my father did me a graver wrong, Graydon. I have thought it
all out. I have no right to be alive, so what right have I to be
any man's wife?"

"Nonsense, dearest. You are alive, and you live for me, as I do
for you. You have saved my life; you must save my love. These last
few weeks have knit our lives together so completely that neither
of us has the right to change God's evident purpose. I love you
for yourself, Jane. That is enough. There has not been an instant
in which I have felt that any circumstance could alter my hope to
marry you. You say; you have no name. You forget that you may have
mine, dearest--and it is not much to be proud of, I fear, in the