! You mustn't say
any more."

"But you do not catch my full meaning," he went on. "I ask you"--

"Get up at once," she repeated. "You mustn't say it; it's impossible!
Suppose some one should come in. Oh, do get up!"

Yielding to her evident alarm, he awkwardly scrambled to his feet, and
threw himself down in in his chair once more, with a force that pushed
it back against the opposite wall.

"Truly, I never thought of such a thing," Louise said penitently. "I
always supposed that you came to see Cousin Euphemia, not me; or I might
have prevented this."

"Why should you, Louisa?" returned the Reverend Gabriel, with a cheerful
assurance that grated upon her ears. "I am willing to wait and hope; my
heart is eternally yours."

"Oh, I hope not!" she answered quickly. "Really, Dr. Hornblower, it
never can be, never could have been; I never even thought of such an
idea. You have always been very kind to me, I know," she went on
hesitatingly, trying to soften her words a little; "but I thought it was
only because you felt a fatherly interest in me."

"I'm not so old as you seem to think," began Dr. Hornblower testily;
then, bethinking himself that this was not according to his models, he
made a dramatic pause, before he asked his final question, "Is there,
then, Another?"

Louise hung her head and blushed.

"I'm afraid there is," she faltered.

"And his name?"

The girl looked at him haughtily; then her face softened, as she thought
of the mortification that she was inflicting upon the old man before
her, and she answered gently,--

"It is Dr. Brownlee."

Once more the Reverend Gabriel hesitated. He had carefully rehearsed his
part, until he was thoroughly familiar with it; but his imaginary
interviews had taken only the one form, and he had never counted upon
such an ending as this. However, he was resolved to carry it through to
the close; and, after a hasty review of the ways of rejected lovers, he
recalled the case of the luckless Alphonso Ludovico, and felt himself
prepared to meet the new emergency.

"It is the end," he said slowly. "Pardon my intrusion, Miss Everett; I
will no longer impose upon your kindness. I go forth upon my lonely
way."

He started to rise from his chair, but came to a sudden pause, while a
sound of rending and cracking broke the silence that had followed his
tragic words. All unconsciously, Wang Kum had given him the sticky
chair; and the heat of the room and the doctor's fever