'Say rather that you will not.'
Barring, in an angle of the terrace, her attempts to leave him, he continued, in an earnestness that was born of monetary pressure and desperate hope, to plead his passion.
'I am greatly honoured,' replied the girl, growing cold as he waxed warm, and glancing nervously at the windows of the mansion; 'but I am very sorry——'
'That you don't love me.'
'Yes.'
'But you may in time. Oh, how I could teach you to do so! Let me wait and strive, Olive. You deem me wild, perhaps—horsey, and all that sort of thing; but do you think a man never changes, never grows better, under a woman's softening influence? Are you entirely to let this family compact, whatever it may be, Olive—pardon me, Miss Raymond,' he added, as he saw how her face clouded by the reference to her position—'are you intending to let it stand between you and all other chances of marriage?'
'You have no right to question me thus, or to assume this interest in my affairs, Mr. Holcroft.'
'Pardon me, but I have a love for you that will last while life does.'
He did not add that it was the love of—her money.
'If there is only the Master, your cousin, between us, that is no barrier, as I know you don't love him.'