. "Speak to me!" he cried,
seizing her hands. "Are you unhappy? Is your heart broken? O Gertrude!
what have you come to?"

Gertrude drew her hands from his grasp and rose to her feet. "Get up,
Richard," she said. "Don't talk so wildly. I'm not well. I'm very glad
to see you. _You_ look well."

"I've got my strength again,--and meanwhile you've been failing. You're
unhappy, you're wretched! Don't say you're not, Gertrude: it's as plain
as day. You're breaking your heart."

"The same old Richard!" said Gertrude, trying to smile again.

"Would that you were the same old Gertrude! Don't try to smile; you
can't!"

"I _shall_!" said Gertrude, desperately. "I'm going to be married, you
know."

"Yes, I know. I don't congratulate you."

"I have not counted upon that honor, Richard. I shall have to do without
it."

"You'll have to do without a great many things!" cried Richard,
horrified by what seemed to him her blind self-immolation.

"I have all I ask," said Gertrude.

"You haven't all _I_ ask then! You haven't all your friends ask."

"My friends are very kind, but I marry to suit myself."

"You've not suited yourself!" retorted the young man. "You've
suited--God knows what!--your pride, your despair, your resentment." As
he looked at her, the secret history of her weakness seemed to become
plain to him, and he felt a mighty rage against the man who had taken a
base advantage of it. "Gertrude!" he cried, "I entreat you to go back.
It's not for my sake,--_I_'ll give you up,--I'll go a thousand miles
away, and never look at you again. It's for your own. In the name of
your happiness, break with that man! Don't fling yourself away. Buy him
off, if you consider yourself bound. Give him your money. That's all he
wants."

As Gertrude listened, the blood came back to her face, and two flames
into her eyes. She looked at Richard from head to foot. "You are not
weak," she said, "you are in your senses, you are well and strong; you
shall tell me what you mean. You insult the best friend I have. Explain
yourself! you insinuate foul things,--speak them out!" Her eyes glanced
toward the door, and Richard's followed them. Major Luttrel stood on the
threshold.

"Come in, sir!" cried Richard. "Gertrude swears she'll believe no harm
of you. Come and tell her that she's wrong! How can you keep on
harassing a woman whom you've brought to this state? Think of what she
was three months ago, and look at her now!"

Luttrel recei