he said. "I know you. I like you. I just wanted to
know if you had ever been engaged--in the broad sense--engaged to a
woman--with promises to fulfill. I just wanted to ask."

"No," said I.

"There!" said he. "I knew it all the time."

"Was there another question?" I asked.

"Why, yes," he said. "Why, yes. I believe I did have another. Now, what
was it? I had another question. It was awkward, too, if I remember. I
had another."

We both laughed then.

"Yet it seems so strange for me to ask these questions now, doesn't
it?" he went on, fingering the pages of a book on the desk. "It is so
early and a good deal more natural for you to speak to me than for me to
speak to you. But, good God! there is a reason if you only knew--a
reason. Let us say, for instance, that I might not be here then."

"Ask it, sir," I said.

"Why, I was only going to say that, in case you should succeed,--I doubt
if you do succeed,--but in case you should succeed in causing her to
love you, there would be no withdrawal on your part. Little Julie--my
little daughter! Neither of you has known what it means yet. And,
Estabrook, when she does, it must not go wrong. I know her well. She
will never love but one man. He must not withdraw when he has won her!"

I started to speak angrily.

"Wait!" he cried, with his hands clenched. "He must not be shaken from
her by anything--anything for which she is not to blame herself--no
matter how strange or terrible--anything. Nothing will come. I know it.
But that must be promised me--to stand by her, no matter what misfortune
might descend upon her."

"What could?" I asked in a trembling voice.

"Nothing," the Judge said. "It is not in God's character to allow such
a thing. When you love her, Estabrook, my boy, you will not ask me that
question in answer to mine."

"No," I said at once. "There need be no doubts between us, sir. It is
not necessary for either of us to answer."

His whole countenance lit up as if my words had fed his soul. I should
be sorry to have wiped from my memory the impression of that old man's
look, as, without taking his eyes from my face, he reached for his hat.

Yet, to-night, when I, for perhaps the last time, realize again the
presence of some infernal, undefined evil, I wonder that I should have
been so great a fool and so willingly have neglected even the prudence
of a lover. I wonder that I made so blind a bargain. I wonder that I did
not ask him, before it was too