"They are good things—they are harmony—but——"

"Yes—what are the buts?" his voice trembled a little.

"Love seems to me to be a wild thing, a raging, tearing passion—Can it ever be just tender and kind?"

"I wish you would let me prove to you that it can."

She looked into his face gravely, and there was nothing but honest question in her violet eyes.

"To what end?" she asked.

"I would like you to marry me." He had said it now when he had not intended to yet, and he was pale as death.

She shrank from him a little.

"But surely you know that I am not free!"

"I hoped I—believed that you can make yourself so—if you knew how I love you! I have never really loved any woman before in my life. I always thought they should be only recreations—but the moment I saw you, my whole opinions changed."