“Mr. Clifford,” said Belle, her voice gathering firmness as she proceeded, “while all the relations of life demand that there should be entire truthfulness between us and our fellow creatures, I think we should be especially sincere and candid in our dealings with each other on this question of marriage, a question not only as affecting our own welfare but that of[5] others, a relation which may throw its sunshine or shadow over the track of unborn ages.  Permit me now to say to you, that there is no gentleman of my acquaintance whom I esteem more highly than yourself; but when you ask me for my heart and hand, I almost feel as if I had no heart to give; and you know it would be wrong to give my hand where I could not place my heart.”

“But would it be impossible for you to return my affection?” “I don’t know, but I am only living out my [vow] of truthfulness when I say to you, I feel as if I had been undone for love.  You tell that in offering your hand that you bring me a heart unhackneyed in the arts of love, that my heart is the first and only shrine on which you have ever laid the wealth of your affections.  I cannot say the same in reply.  I have had my bright and beautiful day dream, but it has faded, and I have learned what is the hardest of all lessons for a woman to learn.  I have learned to live without love.”

“Oh no,” said Paul, “not to live without love.  In darkened homes how many grateful hearts rejoice to hear your footsteps on the threshold.  I have seen the eyes of young Arabs of the street grow brighter as you approached and say, ’That’s my lady, she comes to see my mam when she’s sick.’  And I have seen little girls in the street quicken their face to catch a loving smile from their dear Sunday school teacher.  Oh Miss Belle instead of living without love, I think you are surrounded with a cordon of loving hearts.”

“Yes, and I appreciate them—­but this is not the love to which I refer.  I mean a love which is mine, as anything else on earth is mine, a love precious, enduring and strong, which brings hope and joy and sunshine over one’s path in life.  A love which commands my allegiance and demands my respect.  This is the love I have learned to do without, and perhaps the poor and needy had learned to love me less, had this love surrounded me more.”

“Miss Belle, perhaps I was presumptuous, to have asked a return of the earnest affection I have for you; but I had hoped that you would give the question some consideration; and may I not hope that you will think kindly of my proposal?  Oh Miss Gordon, ever since the death of my sainted mother, I have had in my mind’s eye the ideal of a woman nobly planned, beautiful, intellectual, true and affectionate, and you have filled out that ideal in all its loveliest proportions, and I hope that my desire will not be like reaching out to some bright particular star and wishing to win it.  It seems to me,” he said with increasing earnestness, “whatever obstacle may be in the way, I would go through fire and water to remove it.”