. But you know it
is just plainly impossible. You know your own temper and your own
spirit--and perhaps you know mine as well. No, no--we cannot manage it
anyhow, Dr Edward," said Nettie, with a little sigh.

"Is this all you have to say to me?" cried the astonished lover.

"I am sure I do not know what else to say," said Nettie, with
matter-of-fact distinctness. "I don't need to enter into all the
business again, and tell you how things stand; you know as well as I
do. One may be sorry, but one must do what one has to do all the same."

A painful pause followed. Nettie, with all her feminine acuteness, could
not divine that this calm way of treating a business which had wrought
her companion into such a pitch of passion, was the most humiliating
and mortifying possible to a man in whose bosom love and pride were so
combined. He tried to speak more than once, but could not. Nettie said
nothing more--she was uneasy, but secure in the necessity of her own
position. What else could she do or say?

"Then, I presume, this is my answer," said the doctor, at last, gulping
an amount of shame and anger which Nettie could not conceive of, and
which the darkness concealed from her sight.

"Oh, Dr Edward, what can I say?" cried the girl; "you know it all as
well as I do. I cannot change it with a word. I am very, very sorry,"
said Nettie, faltering and startled, waking to a sudden perception of
the case all at once, by reason of catching a sudden gleam of his eyes.
They came to a dead stop opposite each other, she half frightened and
confused, he desperate with love and rage and mortification. By this
time they had almost reached the cottage door.

"Don't take the trouble to be sorry. I'll--oh, I'll get over it!" cried
the doctor, with a sneer at himself and his passion, which came out of
the bitterness of his heart. Then, after a pause--"Nettie!" cried the
young man--"Nettie! do you see what you are doing?--do you choose Fred
and those wretched imps instead of your own life and mine? You are not
so indifferent as you think you are. We shall never get over it, neither
you nor me. Nettie, once for all, is this all you have to say?"

"If I were to say all the words in the language," said Nettie, after a
pause, with a breathless indistinctness and haste, "words will not change
_things_ if we should break our hearts."

The open door, with the light shining out from it, shone upon them at
that moment, and Mrs Smith waiting to le