"To-morrow never comes. There is nothing like to-day; and how could I have lived till to-morrow? I could not sleep, I could not rest, until I had seen you. My heart seemed on fire. Monica, how could you have treated me as you did to-day?"
She is silent. The very fact of her not answering convinces him her coldness at the Barracks was intentional, and his tone takes an additional sadness as he speaks again.
"You meant it then?" he says. "You would not throw me even one poor glance. If you could only look into my heart, and read how cruelly I felt your unkindness, you might——"
"I don't know what you mean," says Monica. "Why should you talk of unkindness? Why should I be kinder to you than to another?"
"Of your grace alone; I know that," says the young man, humbly. He has paid court to many a town-bred damsel before this, and gained their smiles too, and their sighs; yet now he sues to this cold child as he never sued before, and knows his very soul is set on her good will.
"Why must you choose me to love,—me, of all the world?" says Monica, tremulously: "it is wide, there are others—and——"
"Because I must. It is my fate, and I am glad of it. Whom worthier could I love?" says the lover, with fond, passionate reverence.
"Many, no doubt. And why love at all? Let us be friends, then, if it is indeed decreed that our lives meet——"
"There could never be mere friendship between you and me. If your heart sleeps, at least your sense must tell you that."
"Then I could wish myself without sense. I want to know nothing about it. Alas! how sad a thing is love!"