"Carlia, stop—don't."
"I know you, Dorian. I've heard you and Uncle Zed talk, sometimes when you thought I was not listening. I know your high ideals of service, how you believe it is necessary for the higher to reach down to help and save the lower. Oh, I know, Dorian; and it is this that I think of. You cannot love poor me for my sake, but you are doing this for fear of not doing your duty. Hush—Listen! Not that I don't honor you for your high ideals—they are noble, and belong to just such as I believe you are. Yes, I have always, even as a child, looked up to you as someone big and strong and good—Yes, I have always worshiped you, loved you! There, you know it, but what's the use!"
Dorian moved his chair close to her, then said:
"You are mistaken, of course, in placing my goodness so high, though I've always tried to do the right by everybody. That I have failed with you is evidence that I am not so perfect as you say. But now, let's forget everything else but the fact that we love each other. Can't we be happy in that?"
The roses faded from Carlia's cheeks, though coaxed to stay by the firelight.
"My dear," he continued, "we'll go home, and I'll try to make up to you my failings. I think I can do that, Carlia, when you become my wife."
"I can't, Dorian, Oh, I can't be that."
"Why not Carlia?"
"I can't marry you. I'm not—No, Dorian."
"In time, Carlia. We will have to wait, of course; but some day"—he took her hands, and she did not seem to have power to resist—"some day" he said fervently, "you are going to be mine for time and for eternity."