When he came and put his arm round her waist, and asked in a low voice, “Elizabeth, will you be mine?” she felt, for the first time in her life, on the point of fainting.  She hardly knew what she did, but pushed him involuntarily away from her.

He seized her hand afresh, and asked, “Elizabeth, will you be my wife?”

She was very pale, as she answered—­“Yes!”

But when he wanted again to take her by the waist, she sprang suddenly back, and looked at him with an expression of terror.

“Elizabeth!” he said, tenderly, and tried again to approach her, “what is the matter with you?  If you only knew how I have longed for this moment.”

“Not now—­no more now!” she pleaded, holding out her hand to him.  “Another time.”

“But you say ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth—­that you are my—?” But he felt that she wanted him to go now.

After he had gone, she sat there on a box for a long time in silence, gazing straight before her.

So it had actually come to pass!  Her heart beat so that she could hear it herself, and she seemed to feel a dull pain there.  Her face, little by little, acquired a fixed, cold expression:  she was thinking that he was then telling his stepmother of their engagement, and fortifying himself for her reception of the announcement.

She expected to be called down.  But no summons came; and at last she decided to go without being called.

In the sitting-room they were all quietly intent upon their several occupations.  Carl was pretending to read a book; but he threw her a stolen, tenderly anxious look over the top of it when she entered.

Supper was brought in, and everything went on as quietly as usual, even to his customary banter.  To Elizabeth it seemed as if there was a mist over them all; and when Mina once asked if there was anything the matter with her, she could only answer mechanically, ‘No.’  The question was repeated later on, and received the same answer.  She brought the supper things in and took them out, as usual, and it seemed as if she could not feel the floor under her feet, or what she carried in her hand.

The evening passed, and they went to bed without anything happening.  But in the partial darkness of the stair-landing, he seized her hand passionately, and said—­“Good-night, my Elizabeth, my—­my Elizabeth!”

She was not in a condition to return the pressure of his hand, and when he approached his lips to her forehead, she hastily drew herself away.

“I came out here alone to tell you this, dear, dearest Elizabeth,” he whispered, with passion trembling in his voice, and making an effort to draw her to him.  “I must be on land again to-morrow.  Must I go without one sign that you care for me?”

She bent her forehead slowly towards him, and he kissed it, and she then immediately left him.

“Good-night, my beloved one!” he whispered after her.