e will do. Come in here," and he led the way into a small parlor
which was not often used.

"I was so sorry to hear last night that you were unwell, Mr. Anderson."

"I was not very well, certainly, after what I had heard before dinner."
He did not tell her that he so far recovered as to be able to drink a
bottle of claret and to smoke a couple of cigars in his bedroom. "Of
course you remember what took place yesterday."

"Remember! Oh yes. I shall not readily forget it."

"I made you a promise--"

"You did--very kindly."

"And I mean to keep it."

"I'm sure you do, because you're a gentleman."

"I don't think I ought to have made it."

"Oh, Mr. Anderson!"

"I don't think I ought. See what I am giving up."

"Nothing, except the privilege of troubling me."

"But if it should be something else? Do not be angry with me, but,
loving you as I do, of course my mind is full of it. I have promised,
and must be dumb."

"And I shall be spared great vexation."

"But suppose I were to hear that in six months' time you had married
some one else?"

"Mr. Annesley, you mean. Not in six months."

"Somebody else. Not Mr. Annesley."

"There is nobody else."

"But there might be."

"It is impossible. After all that I told you, do not you understand?"

"But if there were?" The poor man, as he made the suggestion, looked
very piteous. "If there were, I think you should promise me I shall be
that somebody else. That would be no more than fair."

She paused a moment to think, frowning the while. "Certainly not."

"Certainly not?"

"I can make no such promise, nor should you ask it. I am to promise that
under certain circumstances I would become your wife, when I know that
under no circumstances I would do so."

"Under no circumstances?"

"Under none. What would you have me say, Mr. Anderson? Supposing
yourself engaged to marry a girl--"

"I wish I were--to you."

"To a girl who loved you, and whom you loved?"

"There's no doubt about my loving her."

"You can follow my meaning, and I wish that you would do so. What would
you think if you were to hear that she had promised to marry some one
else in the event of your deserting her? It is out of the question. I
mean to be the wife of Harry Annesley. Say that it is not to be so, and
you will simply destroy me. Of one thing I may be sure,--that I will
marry him or nobody. You promised me, not because your promise was
necessary for that, but to spare me from tro