"Forgive you?" he repeated sadly. "I love you, Una. I can forgive you,
I expect, a good deal more easily than you will forgive yourself. Yes,
there is something you can do--if you ever discover that another poor
fellow is in love with you--and you are the sort of girl whom men will
love--remember me and spare him this experience. Don't go on being
`nice' to him. That kind of niceness is the worst form of cruelty."

I hung my head and could not answer. To think that "that boy," as I had
contemptuously called him, should have behaved in such a manly, generous
fashion! I felt utterly ashamed and despicable. It was he who is a
thousand times too good for me!

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

We were very silent driving home in the brougham, and I refused to go
into Lorna's room, as I always did before going to bed, saying that I
was too tired to talk. She looked anxious, but did not try to persuade
me. I afterwards learnt that she went to Wallace instead, and sat up
with him for the greater part of the night.

I lay wide awake tossing and crying until five o'clock, when I fell
asleep, and did not wake until nine. Lorna did not come to see me, and,
though I dreaded her coming, I felt miserable because she stayed away.
Every single morning she had come into my room and hugged and kissed me,
and we had walked down to breakfast arm-in-arm. She must have been
very, very angry to omit that ceremony!

I took a long time to dress, for I wanted Wallace to be safely started
on his rounds before appearing downstairs, and at last, just as I was
feeling that I could not respectably linger another moment, the door
opened, and there, at last, stood Lorna.

She had been crying dreadfully. I could see that at a glance, for the
eyelids were swollen and puffy, just as they used to be the first
morning after our return to school. Mine were swollen, too, and we
stood staring miserably at each other, but not approaching a step
nearer, until at last she said coldly--

"Mother sent me upstairs to ask if you would prefer to have your
breakfast in bed. She thought you were not up."

"Oh, yes, I have been waiting. Lorna, don't look at me like that!" I
cried desperately. "I'm miserable too, and you ought not to turn
against me--you are my friend."

"Wallace is my brother," said Lorna simply. Her lip quivered. "I sat
up with him until four o'clock this morning. He has always been such a
happy, cheerful boy. I did not know he cou