God for are darkness and sleep. The thing
I fervently pray to Him for is that He will
let me forget. Kenneth, it would kill me
to do what you wish. It can't, can't, can't
be. I am not fit for you. Leave me in
peace."

On his part a few minutes of frowning
thoughtfulness. Then he returned to the
charge.

"In all you say I can only see the outcome
of a morbidly overgrown sensitiveness.
What you call peace is not peace,
but stagnation. As to forgetting, you will
best forget by letting your life be filled with
new things, new hope and love. You are
a woman, meant to find your happiness in
loving, and in being loved, and in living
for those you love, not in the selfish, lonely
comfort and quiet of an old maid's life.
Think how selfish all you have said has
been. It is all of what you want, with no
thought for me. I, too, want rest and
peace. Till I know that one roof covers
you and me, I shall not know either. In
fact, Daisy, I so want you that my life is
one want till I have you."

"Have pity, Kenneth; you torture me."

He looked straightly down into her
appealing eyes, eyes that, even while they
appealed, contracted as if with pain, and
shrank from his scrutiny.

"I torture you, do I, poor Daisy? That
is the last thing I would do, except for
your good. Well; I have almost done. I
will only ask you, just for one moment, to
put yourself in my place. I want a wife,
and you are the only woman I will marry.
I want a home, not a house, but a home,
and you are the only woman who can make
one for me. Isn't my case a hard one,
Daisy? Mightn't you make some sacrifice—
of pride, or reserve, or whatever it is
—for me? Look at me critically, Daisy.
Don't I look as if it were time I had some
comfort in life? See how grey I'm getting.
See how bald I'm getting. Am I
not thin and gaunt? Don't I look uncared
for? Putting aside happiness, what even
of comfort have I had in life? Think how
cosey you are here, Daisy; and by-and-bye
you will turn me out into the raw night.
Listen to the rain. I shall be wet to the
skin when I get home. There will be no
fire to warm me, and nobody to notice
whether I'm wet or dry."

"As if you cared for such things!" Daisy
spoke scornfully. She was irritated; she
fancied there was a twinkle of humour
about his mouth. It seemed as if what
was such terrible tragedy to her was to him
only comedy. As if he were either indifferent
to success, or very confident of it.

"I didn't say I did care for such things;
but I thought you might care about them
for me, Daisy. And without caring about
being cold and wet, I might get a chill, and
die of it."

"You have only your own wilfulness to
blame if you cannot have the common comforts
of life. You often used to call me
wilful, but it is you who are wilful now,
saying you want a wife, and setting your
mind upon a woman you can't have as the
only one you will have."

"That is not wilfulness, Daisy; that is
wisdom; besides, that I can't have you has
yet to be proved."

"Oh, of course!" Daisy was glad to
feel herself growing hot and angry. It
was so much less painful to be angry with
him than to be sorry for him.

"In a weak creature," he went on, " the
determination to be satisfied with nothing
but something it can't get would be mere
wilfulness; but, Daisy, I am not weak, and
I mean to get the one thing that is the one
thing that can satisfy me."

Looking up into his eyes, Daisy flushed,
and trembled, and quailed.

"Kenneth, Kenneth, don't say so!" she
cried, piteously. " Oh, if only anything I
could say would make you give it up, and
leave me in peace!"

"There are words that would do this.
If you can look me full in the face, and say,
' Kenneth, I dont love you. I never have
loved you. I never shall love you,' then I
will go away, and leave you in peace."

Instead she bowed her face into her
hands, murmuring something about his
cruelty, and that she ought to hate him.
Then, after a time, she looked up, to say,
"But, Kenneth, it cannot be. I will not,
I cannot, marry you. I am not fit for
you."

"You have said those words, that you
are not fit fcr me, several times. What do
you mean by them?"

She made him no answer.

He began to walk to and fro in the room.

"There can be no middle course," he
said, by-and-bye. " If you insist in your
determination to have nothing to do with
me—"

She murmured she had expressed no
such determination.

"Yes, you have. I want all or nothing.
You refuse me all, so I will have nothing.
I am not a fellow who can be kept
dangling on, on sufferance. Well, then,