as you; and now--why, Alan, I feel as if the world would be nothing
to me without you. Your name seems to sing in my ears all day long
with the song of the birds, and to thrill through and through me as
I lie awake on my pillow with the cry of the nightjar. Yet, if you
won't take me on my own terms, I know well what will happen. I
shall go away, and grieve over you, of course, and feel bereaved
for months, as if I could never possibly again love any man. At
present it seems to me I never could love him. But though my heart
tells me that, my reason tells me I should some day find some other
soul I might perhaps fall back upon. But it would only be falling
back. For the sake of my principles alone, and of the example I
wish to set the world, could I ever fall back upon any other. Yet
fall back I would. And what good would you have done me then by
refusing me? You would merely have cast me off from the man I love
best, the man who I know by immediate instinct, which is the voice
of nature and of God within us, was intended from all time for me.
The moment I saw you my heart beat quicker; my heart's evidence
told me you were the one love meant for me. Why force me to
decline upon some other less meet for me?"

Alan gazed at her, irresolute. "But if you love me so much," he
said, "surely, surely, it is a small thing to trust your future to
me."

The tenderness of woman let her hand glide over his cheek. She was
not ashamed of her love. "O Alan," she cried, "if it were only for
myself, I could trust you with my life; I could trust you with
anything. But I haven't only myself to think of. I have to think
of right and wrong; I have to think of the world; I have to think
of the cause which almost wholly hangs upon me. Not for nothing