"You will hurt yourself, and--Oh, DO take--" He struggled through a dry ditch as she spoke, and came out upon a grassy place that bordered the towpath of the canal.

Here, on the bank of a hollow where the moss was dry and soft, he seated her, threw himself prone on his elbows before her, and said, panting: "Nessus carrying off Dejanira was nothing to this! Whew! Well, my darling, are you glad to see me ?" "But--" "But me no buts, unless you wish me to vanish again and for ever.

Wretch that I am, I have longed for you unspeakably more than once since I ran away from you.

You didn't care, of course ?" "I did.

I did, indeed.