“And so you wish to give Elsie up?”
“Wish!” and Magnus dropped his forehead into his palms with a groan that might have started all the house, had they been listening. Then, lifting his head up again, he said sternly, almost fiercely:
“Listen! If Elsie loved me, not all the power of earth or of hell—or—God forgive me!—I had nearly said of heaven—should sever her from me! not you—not her father—not herself—if only she loved me! But she does not, and it is all over.”
“And who told you she did not love you?” inquired Alice, smiling at his vehemence, and sighing as her thoughts flew back to the past, when she was resigned in spite of herself. “Who told you that Elsie did not return your love?”
With a gesture of despair Magnus recounted all that had passed between himself and Elsie, and ended, as he had begun, with a groan, dropping his head upon his hands.
“Puir human bodies are sic’ fules,
Wi’ a’ their colleges and schules,
That when nae real ills perplex ’em,
They mak eno’ themsel’s to vex ’em,”
sang Alice; then said: