ough,"--hastily, and
with a vivid flush that changes all her pallor into warmth,--"if I
were put to it, I couldn't tell you why."

"No? Do you know I have often felt like that," says Scrope,
carelessly. "It is both strange and natural. One has fits of
depression that come and go at will, and that one cannot account for;
at least, I have, frequently. But you, Clarissa, you should not know
what depression means."

"I know it to day." For the moment her courage fails her. She feels
weak; a craving for sympathy overcomes her; and, turning, she lifts
her large sorrowful eyes to his.

She would, perhaps, have spoken; but now a sense of shame and a sharp
pang that means pride come to her, and, by a supreme effort, she
conquers emotion, and lets her heavily-lashed lids fall over her
suffused eyes, as though to conceal the tell-tale drops within from
his searching gaze.

"So, you see,"--she says, with a rather artificial laugh,--"your
flattery falls through: with all this weight of imaginary woe upon my
shoulders, I can hardly be looking my best."

"Nevertheless, I shall not allow you to call my true sentiments
flattery," says Scrope: "I really meant what I said, whether you
choose to believe me or not. Yours is a

'Beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'"

"What a courtier you become!" she says, laughing honestly for almost
the first time to-day. It is so strange to hear James Scrope say
anything high-flown or sentimental. She is a little bit afraid that he
knows why she is sorry, yet, after all, she hardly frets over the fact
of his knowing. Dear Jim! he is always kind, and sweet, and
thoughtful! Even if he does understand, he is quite safe to look as if
he didn't. And that is always such a comfort!

And Sir James, watching her, and marking the grief upon her face,
feels a tightening at his heart, and a longing to succor her, and to
go forth--if need be--and fight for her as did the knights of old for
those they loved, until "just and mightie death, whom none can
advise," enfolded him in his arms.

For long time he has loved her,--has lived with only her image in his
heart. Yet what has his devotion gained him? Her liking, her regard,
no doubt, but nothing that can satisfy the longing that leaves
desolate his faithful heart. Regard, however deep, is but small
comfort to him whose every thought, waking and sleeping, belongs alone
to her.

"Full little knowest th