perplexed. Away, yet come again; come fifty times;
but stay no longer now; begone; -- return though
when you choose; do not wait for an invitation. --
Listen, I hear it again; begone, begone; did you not
hear something? -- it was nothing, perhaps, but yet
begone."

"Never without your love pledge will I leave
you," replied Montigny firmly.

"And would you force me to avow myself?" she
asked. "May Heaven absolve me if I err herein!
No, give me leisure to reflect: this were too sudden.
These passion-hurried vows were too much like those
vapors, that, igniting, rush like to unorbed stars
across the night, then, vanished, leave it blacker.
Do not tempt me. To act in haste is to repent
at leisure; and quickliest lighted coals grow soonest
cool. Even now I feel my cheek aglow with shame,
that burns its passage to my rooted hair. Away: if
you should not forget me, why, you are as though
you were still present; for your thought, which
is your truest self, remains with me. If you should
grow oblivious -- why, it is I that shall suffer, and
not you."

"Oh, waste of words on what can never be!" ex-
claimed Montigny: "cease to doubt me. Forget you!
Love's memories are immortal. Love writes the
lineaments of the beloved in rock, not sand."

"Yet rocks may lose their effigies, the pyramids
their inscriptions, the strong-clamped monument may
tumble, and the marble bust, by time, may let the
salient features fall into one indistinguishable
round," she answered doubtingly.

"They may;" rejoined Montigny: "but neither

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v?