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 No—no!" said Hepworth. "Don't say that, Elisabeth, I shouldn't like you to think of me in that way. I want you to regard me as your friend. Would that be a friendly action? Come—come, don't talk like that."

"You're very kind, sir," she answered. "I'll serve you, Mr. Hepworth, faithfully, as long as you like to employ me."

"That will be as long as you like to stay, Elisabeth," he said.

He went across the room and held out his hand to her. She took it timidly, and looked at him with something of nervous shyness in her eyes. "Elisabeth," said Hepworth, still holding her hand, "I can't forget—what I told you to-night, you know. It's all true, that, aye, and more true now than it was when I first spoke. But, of course, it's no good now."

"No, sir," she answered in a low voice.

"I thought to be your lover," he said, "and in time your husband, Elisabeth. Oh, my dear, I love you as truly as ever a man loved