"If you have finished, Mr. Adelstone, I will leave you."
"Stay," he said, and he stood in the path so that she could not pass him, "Stay one moment. I will not ask you to reconsider your reply. I will only ask you to forgive me." His voice grew hoarse, and his eyes drooped. "Yes, I will beg you to forgive me. Think of what I am suffering, and you will not refuse me that. Forgive me, Stella—Miss Etheridge! I have been wrong, mad, and brutal; but it has sprung from the depth of my love; I am not altogether to blame. Will you say that you will forgive me, and that—that we remain friends?"
Stella paused.
He watched her eagerly.
"If—if," he said quickly, before she could speak—"if you will let this pass as if it had not been—if you will forget all I have said—I will promise not to offend again. Do not let us part—do not send me away never to see you again. I am an old friend of your uncle's; I should not like to lose his friendship; I think I may say that he would miss mine. Let us be friends, Miss Etheridge."
Stella inclined her head.
"Thank you, thank you," he said, meekly, tremulously; "I shall be very grateful for your friendship, Miss Stella. I will keep the rose to remind me of your forbearance," and he was patting the rose in his coat, when Stella with a start stretched out her hand.
"No! give it me back, please," she said.
He stood eying her.
"Let me keep it," he said; "it is a little thing."