ur aunt; when I see her answer you can leave quietly and
naturally, and I will take you to your aunt's door. But in the meantime
you must go home. You have no money, and so you are helpless, and must
do as I tell you; and believe me, Esther, I do all for your good, and
your good only, so God help me."

She had put her hand into her pocket and withdrawn it empty.

"I counted upon you," she wailed.

"You counted rightly, then," he retorted. "I will not, to please you for
a moment, make both of us unhappy for our lives; and since I cannot
marry you, we have only been too long away, and must go home at once."

"Dick," she cried suddenly, "perhaps I might--perhaps in
time--perhaps--"

"There is no perhaps about the matter," interrupted Dick. "I must go and
bring the phaeton."

And with that he strode from the station, all in a glow of passion and
virtue. Esther, whose eyes had come alive and her cheeks flushed during
these last words, relapsed in a second into a state of petrifaction. She
remained without motion during his absence, and when he returned
suffered herself to be put back into the phaeton, and driven off on the
return journey like an idiot or a tired child. Compared with what she
was now, her condition of the morning seemed positively natural. She sat
cold and white and silent, and there was no speculation in her eyes.
Poor Dick flailed and flailed at the pony, and once tried to whistle,
but his courage was going down; huge clouds of despair gathered together
in his soul, and from time to time their darkness was divided by a
piercing flash of longing and regret. He had lost his love--he had lost
his love for good.

The pony was tired, and the hills very long and steep, and the air
sultrier than ever, for now the breeze began to fail entirely. It seemed
as if this miserable drive would never be done, as if poor Dick would
never be able to go away and be comfortably wretched by himself; for all
his desire was to escape from her presence and the reproach of her
averted looks. He had lost his love, he thought--he had lost his love
for good.

They were already not far from the cottage, when his heart again
faltered and he appealed to her once more, speaking low and eagerly in
broken phrases.

"I cannot live without your love," he concluded.

"I do not understand what you mean," she replied, and I believe with
perfect truth.

"Then," said he, wounded to the quick, "your aunt might come and fetch
you hers