e yourself to me--and see how it worked out?"

"I'm afraid I did."

A pause. She knew what he was going to say next, and waited for him to
say it. At last it came. "Well, now that there's no deception, why
shouldn't you?"

"Somehow, I don't seem to mind--about Ross, so much. It--it was while I
was in with father this evening. You haven't seen him since he became so
ill, but you will understand why he is a rebuke to all mean thoughts. I
suppose I'll be squirming again to-morrow, but to-night I feel--"

"That Ross has done you a great service. That you've lost nothing but a
dangerous illusion; that you have been honorable with him, and all the
wrong and the shame are upon him. You must feel it, for it is true."

Adelaide sighed. "I wish I were strong enough to feel it with my friends
jeering at me, as I can feel it now, Dory."

He moved nearer the hammock in which she was sitting. "Del," he said,
"shall we become engaged, with the condition that we'll not marry unless
we both wish to, when the time comes?"

"But you're doing this only to help me--to help me in a weakness I ought
to be ashamed of."

"Not altogether," he replied. "You on your part give me a chance to win
you. You will look at me differently--and there's a great deal in that, a
very great deal, Del."

She smiled--laughed. "I see what you mean."

But he looked gravely at her. "You promise to do your best to care? An
engagement is a very solemn thing, Del. You promise?"

She put out her hand. "Yes," she answered. And, after a moment, in tones
he would have known meant opportunity had he been less in love with her,
less modest about his own powers where she was concerned, she went on:
"The night you told me you loved me I did not sleep. What you said--what
I saw when you opened your heart to me--oh, Dory, I believed then, and I
believe now, that the reason I have not loved you is because I am not
worthy of you. And I'm afraid I never can--for just that reason."

He laughed and kissed her hand. "If _that's_ all that stands in the way,"
said he, "you'll love me to distraction."

Her spirits went soaring as she realized that she had gained honorably
all she had been tempted to gain by artifice. "But you said a while ago,"
she reminded him mischievously, "that you didn't need me."

"So I did," said he, "but the fox shouldn't be taken too literally as he
talks about the grapes that are out of reach."

Suddenly she was longing for him to take her in