o tell you something," he said. "I should like you to hear it
from me first, because you have been so good a friend to me. I have
spoken to you of my cousin, Nelly. I wanted you to be her friend.
Well--I am to marry my cousin in July."

There was silence for a moment after he had said it, a silence broken
only by the ticking of the noisy clock on the mantelpiece, by the sounds
of the street outside.

"There has been an implicit engagement between my cousin and myself," he
went on as though he set his teeth to it. "I couldn't tell you when it
began. It was made for us. I was always ready to be bound by it. She is
as sweet a thing as ever lived; but sometimes I have thought that
perhaps, perhaps, the cousinly closeness would make the other tie a
difficult thing for Nelly to accept. I was wrong. She has no desire to
break through that implicit bond."

He was making an explanation, and Mary Gray was not the girl to
misunderstand him.

"I am very glad," she said cheerfully, "very glad. I hope you will be
very happy. I am sure that you will be."

He looked at her with relief, which was not altogether agreeable. He had
not done her any wrong after all. She was not angry with him. But, to be
sure, why should she be? It was unlikely that she would have taken more
than a friendly interest in him. He mocked at himself, and thought of
his harsh uncomeliness. If he had been Ilbert now his conduct of all
this winter past would have been unpardonable. But Ilbert and he were
made in a different mould. Oddly, the thought did not comfort him--was a
bitter one, rather.

"Won't you sit down and tell me about it?" Mary said, her eyes looking
at him frankly and kindly. "I am not at all busy. The business of the
Bureau is pretty well over for the day, and I can finish my proofs at
home. Do, Sir Robin."

She pushed a chair towards him, and he sat down in it. He felt that he
ought to go. It was a concession to his own weakness that he stayed. And
he had no inclination at all to talk about his engagement. He tried to
say something, tried to imagine what a man happily engaged to be married
would find to say to a sympathetic woman-friend about it. He could think
of nothing, only that so far as he could see there was no consciousness
in the serious bright eyes that watched him. To be sure he ought to be
glad. He would be the most miserable hound on earth if he wished her to
be unhappy because he was marrying his cousin. Yet he was not glad