Bad Hugh

"Heaven forgive her if she misled him all this while; but she did not.

It were worse than death to think she did--to know I've told you this in

vain--have offered you my heart only to have it thrust back upon me as

something you do not want. Speak, Alice! in mercy, speak! Can it be that

I'm mistaken?"

Alice saw how she had unwittingly led him on, and her white lips

quivered with pain. Lifting up her head at last, she exclaimed: "You don't mean me, Hugh! Oh, you don't mean me?"

"Yes, darling," and he clasped in his own the hand raised imploringly

toward him. "Yes, darling, I mean you. Will you be my wife?"

Alice had never before heard a voice so earnest, so full of meaning, as

the one now pleading with her to be what she could not be. She must do

something, and sliding from her stool she sank upon her knees--her

proper attitude--upon her knees before Hugh, whom she had wronged so

terribly, and burying her face in Hugh's own hands, she sobbed: "Oh, Hugh, Hugh! you don't know what you ask. I love you dearly, but

only as my brother--believe me, Hugh, only as a brother. I wanted one so

much--one of my own, I mean; but God denied that wish, and gave me you

instead. I'm sorry I ever came here, but I cannot go away. I've learned

to love my Kentucky home. Let me stay just the same. Let me really be

what I thought I was, your sister. You will not send me away?"

She looked up at him now, but quickly turned away, for the expression of

his white, haggard face was more than she could bear, and she knew there

was a pang, keener even than any she had felt, a pang which must be

terrible, to crush a strong man as Hugh was crushed.

"Forgive me, Hugh," she said, as he did not speak, but sat gazing at her

in a kind of stunned bewilderment. "You would not have me for your wife,

if I did not love you?"

"Never, Alice, never!" he answered. "But it is not any easier to bear. I

don't know why I asked you, why I dared hope that you could think of me.

I might have known you could not. Nobody does. I cannot win their love.

I don't know how."

Alice neither looked up nor moved, only sobbed piteously, and this more

than aught else helped Hugh to choke down his own sorrow for the sake of

comforting her. The sight of her distress moved him greatly, for he knew

it was grief that she had so cruelly misled him.

"Alice, darling," he said again, this time as a mother would soothe her

child. "Alice, darling, it hurts me more to see you thus than your

refusal did. I am not wholly selfish in my love. I'd rather you should

be happy than to be happy myself. I would not for the world take to my

bosom an unwilling wife. I should be jealous even of my own caresses,

jealous lest the very act disgusted her more and more. You did not mean

to deceive me. It was I that deceived myself. I forgive you fully, and

ask you to forget that to-night has ever been. It cut me sorely at

first, Alice, to hear you tell me so, but I shall get over it; the wound

will heal."