"O, not the 'most awful'!"
"The most awful to me."
"No, I cannot. As I said before, I have too much circumstantial evidence against you. Mr. Harcourt, true justice looks at the intent of the heart. You unconsciously left abundant proof here of what you intended, and I feel that I owe my life to you as truly as to Mr. Hemstead. And yet I was so cruelly unjust yesterday morning as to treat you coldly, because I thought my old friend and playfellow had let strangers go to our help. With far better reason I wish to ask your forgive—"
"No, no," said Harcourt, eagerly; "circumstances appeared against me that evening, and you only judged naturally. You have no forgiveness to ask, for you have made amends a thousand-fold in this your generous acknowledgment. And yet, Miss Martell, you will never know how hard it was that I could not go to your rescue that night. I never came so near cursing my destiny before."
"I cannot understand it," said Alice, turning away her face.
"It's all painfully plain to me," he said with a spice of bitterness. "Miss Martell, I am as grateful to Hemstead as you are, for when he saved you he also saved me. If you had perished, I feel that I should have taken the counsel of an ancient fool, who said, 'Curse God and die.'"
She gave him a quick look of surprise, but said only, "That would be folly indeed."
He took her hand, and earnestly, indeed almost passionately continued: "Miss Alice, I pray you teach me how to be a true man. Have patience with me, and I will try to be worthy of your esteem. You have made me loathe my old, vile self. You have made true manhood seem so noble and attractive that I am willing to make every effort, and suffer any pain,—even that of seeing you shine upon me in the unapproachable distance of a star. Make me feel that you do care what I become. Speak to me sometimes as you did the other evening among the flowers. Give me the same advice that I find in the old yellow letters which have been my Bible, and, believe me, you will not regret it."
Alice's hand trembled like a frightened bird as he held it in both of his, and she faltered, "I never had a brother, but I scarcely think I could feel towards one differently—" and then the truthful girl stopped in painful confusion. Her love for Harcourt was not sisterly at all, and how could she say that it was?
But he, only too grateful, filled out the sentence for her, and in a deep, thrilling tone answered, "And if my love for you is warmer than a brother's,—more full of the deep, absorbing passion that comes to us but once,—I will try to school it into patience, and live worthily of my love for her who inspired it."