looking on the tender scene with
a scornful smile, and the words he would have answered died away unsaid
on his lips.

CHAPTER XVI.

With a scornful toss of her head, Iris wheeled about. She would not
enter the room, though she was just dying to know what they were
saying--as Kendal sat in the arm-chair before the glowing coals, while
Dorothy knelt on the hassock at his feet.

But that one glance of Iris had proved fatal to Kendal's peace of mind,
and the hope swept over his soul that she would not think that he was
talking love to Dorothy.

His silence perplexed the girl kneeling at his feet.

"I try to picture what our future life will be together, Harry," she
murmured.

"Don't let us talk about it!" he exclaimed, impatiently.

"But I like to," she insisted. "It is my constant thought by night and
by day. And, oh! I shall try to make you so happy. I shall go out dining
with you every day, if you like, and I will always wear a little veil
over my face, that no one need know as they pass us by that your bride
is blind. And I shall try to be so wise, and learn to talk with you upon
the subjects you love best. You will not be ashamed of me, will you,
Harry?"

This with wistful eagerness pitiful to behold.

"I do wish, Dorothy, that you would cease your harping on the same old
subject!" he cried, worriedly. "You annoy me so!"

"Annoy you?" whispered Dorothy, half under her breath. "Why, I did not
know that we could say anything to those we love which could make them
vexed at us, because I thought we were:

"'Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.'

It seems, Harry, as though we had so little time to talk with each other
now. And, oh! how I miss those little chats we used to have together;
don't you?"

"You talk like a child, Dorothy," he cried. "Do you expect me to be
dancing attendance upon you all the time?"

"No; I have ceased to expect that," murmured the girl, choking back a
sob--"especially lately."

"I hope," he cried, "that you are not getting to be one of those
exacting creatures who are jealous if a man is not at their side every
moment? I could never endure that."

With a sudden impulse, Dorothy threw her arms about his neck and nestled
her snow-white cheek against his.

"Let me tell you the truth, Harry," she whispered. "I am trying not to
be jealous, as hard as ever I can; but, oh! there seems such a coldness
between us lately. My intuition--my