now it is intolerable, utterly!"

She was silent.

"You must give me that consolation."

"To say I would ever leave you, Charlie, while you are so helpless,
would be to tell a lie, for I could not do it. Mr. ---- is a civil
engineer. He is always travelling about. I should have no settled home
to take you to. How can you suppose I would abandon you? Do you think I
could find any happiness after doing it? Let us be silent about this."

"I will not, Kate. I am sure, that, besides being a selfish, it would
be a foolish thing to submit to you in this matter. I shall linger,
perhaps, until your youth is gone, and then have the pang, far worse
than any other I could suffer, of leaving you quite alone in the world.
Do listen to reason!"

She sat thinking. At last she said, "Well, wait one year."

"That would be nonsensical procrastination. Does not the doctor declare
that a year will not better my condition?"

"But he cannot be sure. And I promise you, Charlie, that, if Mr. ----
asks me then, I will think about it,--and if you are better, go with
him. More I will not promise."

"A year from last February, you mean?"--A pause.

"Encroacher! Yes, then."