"Until to-night."

"You mean my kissing you? Well, I refuse to apologize. You see I was not prepared to find you so improved. Why, Mel, you're changed. You're just--just lovely."

Again the rich color stained her cheeks.

"Thank you, Daren," she said. "I have changed. _You_ did it.... I've gotten well, and--almost happy.... But let's not talk of myself.

You--there's so much--"

"Mel, I don't want to talk about myself, either," he declared. "When a man's got only a day or so longer--"

"Hush!--Or--Or--," she threatened, with a slight distension of nostrils and a paling of cheek.

"Or what?" demanded Lane.

"Or I'll do to you what you did to me."

"Oh, you'd kiss me to shut my lips?"

"Yes, I would."

"Fine, Mel. Come on. But you'd have to keep steadily busy all evening.

For I've come to talk." Mel came closer to him, with a catch in her breathing, a loving radiance in her eyes. "Daren, you're strange--not like your old self. You're too gay--too happy. Oh, I'd be glad if you were sincere. But you have something on your mind."

Lane knew when to unmask a battery.

"No, it's in my pocket," he flashed, and with a quick motion he tore out the marriage license and thrust it upon her. As her dark eyes took in the meaning of the paper, and her expression changed, Lane gazed down upon her with a commingling of emotions.

"Oh, Daren--No--No!" she cried, in a wildness of amaze and pain.

Then Lane clasped her close, with a force too sudden to be gentle, and with his free hand he lifted her face.

"Look here. Look at me," he said sternly. "Every time you say no or shake your head--I'll do this."

And he kissed her twice, as he had upon his entrance.

Mel raised her head and gazed up at him, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as if both appalled and enthralled.

"Daren. I--I don't understand you," she said, unsteadily. "You frighten me. Let me go--please, Daren. This is--so--so unlike you. You insult me."

"Mel, I can't see it that way," he replied. "I'm only asking you to come out and marry me to-night."

That galvanized her, and she tried to slip from his embrace.

"I told you no--no--no," she cried desperately.

"That's three," said Lane, and he took them mercilessly. "You will marry me," he said sternly.

"Oh, Daren, I can't--I dare not.... Ah!--"

"You will go right now--marry me to-night."

"Please be kind, Daren.... I don't know how you--"

"Mel, where're your coat, and hat, and overshoes?" he questioned, urgently.

"I told you--no!" she flashed, pa.s.sionately.

Lane made good his threat, and this last onslaught left her spent and white.

"You must like my kisses, Mel Iden," he said.

"I implore you--Daren"

"I implore you to marry me."

"Dear friend, listen to reason," she begged. "You don't love me.

You've just a chivalrous notion you can help me--and my boy--by giving us your name. It's n.o.ble, Daren, thank you. But--"

"Take care," warned Lane, bending low over her. "I can make good my word all night."

"Boy, you've gone crazy," she whispered, sadly.

"Well, now you may be talking sense," he laughed. "But that's neither here nor there.... Mel, I may die any day now!"

"Oh, my G.o.d!--don't say that," she cried, as if pierced by a blade.

"Yes. Mel, make me happy just for that little while."

"Happy?" she whispered.

"Yes. I've failed here in every way. I've lost all. And this thing would make the bitterness endurable."

"I'd die for you," she returned. "But marry you!--Daren--dearest--it will make you the laughing-stock of Middleville."

"Whatever it makes me, I shall be proud."

"Oh, I cannot, I dare not," she burst out.

"You seem to forget the penalty for these unflattering negatives of yours," he returned, coolly, bending to her lips.

This time she did not writhe or quiver or breathe. Lane felt surrender in her, and when he lifted his face from hers he was sure. Despite the fact that he had inflexibly clamped his will to one purpose, holding his emotion in abeyance, that brief instant seemed to be the fullest of his life.

"Mel, put your arm round my neck," he commanded.

Mel obeyed.

"Now the other."