deal for you since I first saw you, and I
want you to give me the right to care for you always and protect you
against the whole world."

She looked up, wondering.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I love you, and I want to make you my wife. Then I can defy
the whole world if need be, and put you where you ought to be."

"Oh!" she breathed softly.

"Wait, please," he pleaded, laying his hand gently on her little,
trembling one. "Don't say anything until I have finished. I know of course
that this will be startling to you. You have been brought up to feel that
such things must be more carefully and deliberately done. I do not want
you to feel that this is the only way I can help you, either. If you are
not willing to be my wife, I will find some other plan. But this is the
best way, if it isn't too hard on you, for I love you as I never dreamed
that I could love a woman. The only question is, whether you can put up
with me until I can teach you to love me a little."

She lifted eloquent eyes to his face.

"Oh, it is not that," she stammered, a rosy light flooding cheek and brow.
"It is not that at all. But you know nothing about me. If you knew, you
would very likely think as others do, and----"

"Then do not tell me anything about yourself, if it will trouble you. I do
not care what others think. If you have poisoned a husband, I should know
that he needed poisoning, and any way I should love you and stand by you."

"I have not done anything wrong," she said gravely.

"Then if you have done nothing wrong, we will prove it to the world, or,
if we cannot prove it, we will fly to some desert island and live there in
peace and love. That is the way I feel about you. I know that you are good
and true and lovely! Any one might as well try to prove to me that you
were crazy as that you had done wrong in any way."

Her face grew strangely white.

"Well, suppose I was crazy?"

"Then I would take you and cherish you and try to cure you, and if that
could not be done, I should