"Dear—no, sir!"
"No one who loves you?"
"Well, sir, I won't quite say that——"
"Susan, remember what your sweetheart would feel if he were disappointed about seeing you, and tell me the truth. Has Miss Grahame really gone to bed?"
"Not quite, sir; but she is in her room, and looks dreadful bad. She's been crying, sir. She was crying while she spoke to me."
"You must take her a note."
"Will you write it in here, sir?" asked Susan, in sympathetic tones, putting pen, ink, and paper on the table before him, and discreetly retiring a few steps.
And Lorin wrote thus—
"My own Darling Heart—I must see you! I can't live another hour unless you speak to me! I have something of the utmost importance to both of us to propose. Lina, my only love, why were you so cold to me to-day? Why won't you see me now? And why are you crying? See me just for one brief instant, and let me kiss your tears away! Lina, I shall go mad if you treat me coldly! You can't possibly understand what you are to me or you would never play with me like this. Lina, you have my very heart and soul in your keeping; I will not even believe it possible that you could treat me badly until I hear it from your lips! See me, my darling, for Heaven's sake, just for one moment! You need not even speak. Come down and give me one kiss, my wife that is to be, and I will go away happy. Only come!
"Yours, through life and death,
"Lorin."