as if I had committed a deliberate crime?  If I am the girl you believe me to be, what greater punishment could I have than to know that I had harmed a man like you?  It seems to me that if I loved any one I could suffer for him and help him, without asking anything in return.  I could give you honest friendship, and take heart-felt delight in every manly success that you achieved.  As a weak, faulty girl, who yet wishes to be a true woman, I appeal to you.  Be strong, that I may be strong; be hopeful, that I may hope; be all that you can be, that I may not be disheartened on the very threshold of the better life I had chosen.”

He took her hand, and said:  “I am not unresponsive to your words.  I feel their full force, and hope to prove that I do; but there is a tenacity in my nature that I cannot overcome.  You said, ’if you loved’—­do you not love any one?”

“No.  You are more to me—­twice more—­than any man except my father.”

“Then, think well.  Do not answer me now, unless you must.  Is there not a chance for me?  I am not a shadow of a man, Marian.  I fear I have proved too well how strong and concentrated my nature is.  There is nothing I would not do or dare—­”

“No, Mr. Lane; no,” she interrupted, shaking her head sadly, “I will never consciously mislead a man again a single moment.  I scarcely know what love is; I may never know; but until my heart prompts me, I shall never give the faintest hope or encouragement of this nature.  I have been taught the evil of it too bitterly.”

“And I have been your remorseless teacher, and thus perhaps have destroyed my one chance.”

“You are wrong.  I now see that your words were natural to one like you, and they were unjust only because I was not deliberate.  Mr. Lane, let me be your friend.  I could give you almost a sister’s love; I could be so proud of you!”

“There,” he said.  “You have triumphed after all.  I pledge you my word—­all the manhood I possess—­I will do whatever you ask.”

She took his hand in both her own with a look of gratitude he never forgot, and spoke gladly:  “Now you change everything.  Oh, I am so glad you did not go away before!  What a sad, sleepless night I should have had, and sad to-morrows stretching on indefinitely!  I ask very much, very much indeed,—­that you make the most and best of yourself.  Then I can try to do the same.  It will be harder for you than for me.  You bring me more hope than sadness; I have given you more sadness than hope.  Yet I have absolute faith in you because of what papa said to me last night.  I had asked him how I could cease to be what I was, be different, you know, and he said, ‘Develop the best in your own nature naturally.’  If you will do this I shall have no fears.”

“Yet I have been positively brutal to you to-night.”

“No man can be so strong as you are and be trifled with.  I understand that now, Mr. Lane.  You had no sentimentality to be touched, and my tears did not move you in the least until you believed in my honest contrition.”