not love you altogether. Because I
know I could not sit contentedly for hours with my hand in any one's.
And there are a great many things I would not do for you. And if _you_
were to die----"

"There! that will do," he says, with sudden passion. "Do you know how
you hurt, I wonder? Are you utterly heartless?"

Her eyes darken as he speaks, and, releasing herself from his
embrace,--which, in truth, has somewhat slackened,--she moves back
from him. She is puzzled, frightened; her cheeks lose their soft
color, and--

"With that, the water in her eie
Arose, that she ne might it stoppe;
And, as men sene the dew be droppe
The leves and the floures eke,
Right so upon her white cheke
The wofull salt teres felle."

"I don't want to hurt you," she says, with a sob; "and I know I am
_not_ heartless." There is a faint tinge of indignation in her tone.

"Of course you are not. It was a rather brutal thing my saying so.
Darling, whatever else may render me unhappy, I can at all events find
comfort in the thought that you never loved any other man."

"But I did," says Miss Broughton, still decidedly tearful: "you must
always remember that. There was one; and"--she is plainly in the mood
for confessions--"I shall never love you or any one as I loved him."

"What are you going to tell me now?" says Dorian, desperately. He had
believed his cup quite full, and only now discovers his mistake. Is
there a still heavier amount of misery in store for him? "Is the worst
to be told me yet?" he says, with the calmness of despair, being quite
too far gone for vehemence of any description. "Why did you keep it
from me until now?"

"I didn't keep anything," cries she: "I told you long ago--at least,
I----"

"What is the name?" demands he, gloomily, fully expecting the hated
word "Kennedy" to fall from her lips. "Better let me know it. Nothing
you can possibly say can make me feel more thoroughly stranded than I
am."

"I think you are taking it very unreasonably," says Miss Broughton,
with quivering lips. "If I cannot bring myself to love anybody as well
as poor papa, I can't help it--and it isn't my fault--and you are very
unkind to me--and----"

"Good gracious! what a fright all about nothing!" says Mr. Branscombe,
with a sigh of intense relief. "I don't mind your poor father, you
know,--I rather admire your faithfulness there,--but I thought--er--it
doesn't in the least matter what I thought," hastily: "every one has