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I heard a voice unlike : "I love you, Elsin Why do you repulse , I went to her and took her hand But the dismayed eyes only widened, the color faded from her parted lips

"Can you not see," I whispered, "can you not see I love you?"

"You--love--ht blush stained neck and face, and she threw back her head, avoidingyou to love me! Can you not see what you have done tome, "wait, Carus I--I am afraid----"

"Of love, sweetheart?"

"Wait," she panted--"give e not--if ain so loudly when you hold me--thus--and--and crush me so close to you--so close--and promise to love me----"

"Elsin, Elsin, I love you!"

"Wait--wait, Carus!-- Oh, you must not--kiss ainstsilence her head drooped, lower, lower, yielding her mouth toto her knees, and dropped her head forward on the bed And, as I bent beside her, she gasped: "No--no--wait, Carus! I know myself! I know myself! Take your lips froone blind, I tell you! Leave me to think--if I can----"

"I will not leave you here in tears Elsin, Elsin, look at me!"

"The tears help me--help us both," she sobbed "I knohat I know Leave me--lest the very sky fall to crush us in our madness----"

I bent beside her, a new, fierce tenderness choking htened up, tear-stained face lifted, and flung both arms around my neck

"I love you, Carus! I love you!" she stammered "I care for that, only--only for that! If it be for a week, if it be for a day, an hour, an instant, it is what I was made for, it is what I was fashioned for--to love you, Carus! There is nothing else--nothing else in all the world! Love me, take , all you desire--all save wedlock!"

She swayed in my arms A deadly pallor whitened her; then her knees tre to the floor, her head buried in the flowering curtains of the bed; and I to drop onto lift her face while the sobs shook her slender body, and she wept convulsively, head prostrate in her arms