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232 "No," said Trant, bending close to her, "not till I have told you again that I love you. I worship the ground you tread on. I worship the flowers you touch. Give me that rose; it can't hurt you to do that—the one you have in your belt. Give it to me," he repeated imperiously.

It seemed to Elsie that his black eyes had something of the compelling power that was in Blake's eyes. They were fixed full on hers, and his hand was outstretched. "Give it to me," he said again.

Almost against her will she took out the flower and gave it to him. He kissed it, and put it away in his breast. "Do you believe that I love you?" he said.

"I suppose that you do in a kind of fashion. I wish you wouldn't. It is of no use, and all this is rather amusing in its way, but what's the use of it? I never gave you any reason to think"

"No, you never gave me any reason to think you could care for me, and, perhaps, that is why I am so madly in love with you, why I would risk heaven to win you; not that I believe much in heaven, except the heaven which you could make for me."

"Mr. Trant," said Elsie with some little dignity, rising as she spoke; "let us be friends, and forget all this. I am sorry for having let you talk to me in the way you have done. I have been a vain, foolish, heartless girl. I have only cared to amuse myself. I am afraid that I have sometimes done it at the expense of others. I want to change. I am going to marry a man whom I respect, and for whom I have the deepest affection. I should like to think that from now I may do nothing that will make me unworthy of him. Let us start afresh, and be friends, and don't say any more melodramatic things."

"I don't want to start afresh," said Trant, doggedly. "I mean to go on as I have begun. I love you, and mean to have you—by fair means, or by foul, if fair won't answer. I warn you. Don't ever say that I didn't. Only one thing I want you to know. You are the thing in the world that I have set my heart on, and I've never failed yet."