“Margaret,” I cried, “forgive me, if I have forced myself upon you, but I have no courage to endure longer. You have heard that all hope for the French arms is now virtually at an end, and I must know what lies before me.”
“That must rest with you,” she answered, in the same calm tone which had so upset me in our last meeting.
“Then, Margaret, I am here to plead my own cause,” I answered, firmly, determined not to be swayed by any passing mood, “and I plead in formâ pauperis, for I have no one to rely on save myself, and no hope save in you.”
“You must not count upon me,” she returned, calmly. “I cannot acknowledge that you have any claim upon me.”
“I have the claim which comes from your own affection, Margaret. You loved me once, and in the strength of that love I stand to-day. In the name of that love I ask you to hear me.”
“That is a thing of the past. You have no right to presume upon it now.”
“Is it presumption for one who has lived in such loneliness as I, to hold to the one bright day of his life? There is no past for the heart.”
“I will not argue the point,” she answered, coldly; “but there is a past I have shut out of mine.”
“You may try to persuade yourself you have, Margaret, but it will come back when you think it most banished. I know of what I speak, for when I thought I had buried a past that was torture to me to recall, it has awakened me to nights of hopeless regrets and empty longings; it has stood beside me, unsummoned, when most alone, and has started into life at some chance word or token, when in company. The more you try to live it down, the more you create a haunting memory to fill your hours with bitterness.”
“Then I will meet it with other strength than my own. I have resolved to enter the Community.”