en talking to Charlotte--been trying to bespeak
her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity; was
ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her own head?"

"You are too careful," said Gertrude; "you are too diplomatic."

"Well," cried the young man, "I did n't come here to make any one
unhappy!"

Gertrude looked round her awhile in the odorous darkness. "I will do
anything you please," she said.

"For instance?" asked Felix, smiling.

"I will go away. I will do anything you please."

Felix looked at her in solemn admiration. "Yes, we will go away," he
said. "But we will make peace first."

Gertrude looked about her again, and then she broke out, passionately,
"Why do they try to make one feel guilty? Why do they make it so
difficult? Why can't they understand?"

"I will make them understand!" said Felix. He drew her hand into his
arm, and they wandered about in the garden, talking, for an hour.

CHAPTER XII

Felix allowed Charlotte time to plead his cause; and then, on the third
day, he sought an interview with his uncle. It was in the morning;
Mr. Wentworth was in his office; and, on going in, Felix found that
Charlotte was at that moment in conference with her father. She had, in
fact, been constantly near him since her interview with Felix; she
had made up her mind that it was her duty to repeat very literally her
cousin's passionate plea. She had accordingly followed Mr. Wentworth
about like a shadow, in order to find him at hand when she should have
mustered sufficient composure to speak. For poor Charlotte, in this
matter, naturally lacked composure; especially when she meditated upon
some of Felix's intimations. It was not cheerful work, at the best, to
keep giving small hammer-taps to the coffin in which one had laid
away, for burial, the poor little unacknowledged offspring of one's own
misbehaving heart; and the occupation was not rendered more agreeable
by the fact that the ghost of one's stifled dream had been summoned from
the shades by the strange, bold words of a talkative young foreigner.
What had Felix meant by saying that Mr. Brand was not so keen? To
herself her sister's justly depressed suitor had shown no sign of
faltering. Charlotte trembled all over when she allowed herself to
believe for an instant now and then that, privately, Mr. Brand might
have faltered; and as it seemed to give more force to Felix's words to
repeat them to her father, she was waiting