No;--no, you shall not touch me. But you
shall listen to me. In my sleep I could be happy again and not see
the barriers. But when I woke I made up my mind. "If he comes to
me again," I said-"if it should be that he should come to me
again, I will tell him that he shall be my heaven on earth,--if,--
if--if the ill will of his friends would not make that heaven a
hell to both of us." I did not tell you quite all that.'
'You told me nothing but that I was to come back again in three
months.'
'I said more than that. I bade you ask your father. Now you have
come again. You cannot understand a girl's fears and doubts. How
should you? I thought perhaps you would not come. When I saw you
whispering to that highly-born well-bred beauty, and remembered
what I was myself, I thought that--you would not come.'
'Then you must love me.'
'Love you! Oh, my darling!-No, no, no,' she said, as she
retreated from him round the corner of the billiard-table, and
stood guarding herself from him with her little hands. 'You ask if
I love you. You are entitled to know the truth.
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