than saw the way she glanced at him, for he
was still staring out through the narrow opening between the window and
the blind, away at the curious dark shadowy patch which was slowly
moving further and further away from the line of thickly growing trees.

"Won't you say one word? Not even that you forgive me?"

Her voice was soft and gentle--the voice he remembered having heard so
often in the bygone days--the days for whose sake she had appealed to
him to come to her. He leaned forward in his chair, staring through the
little slit of space between the blind and the window, intent upon
distinguishing what it was he saw, resenting what he believed to be her
efforts to beguile him.

"Do you hate me so much?"

Scarcely above a whisper the words reached him, a whisper with tears in
it, and his heart shrank at the sound. He turned quickly towards her.

She started impulsively to her feet and held out her hands to him.

"Fred!" she exclaimed.

He sat unmoved, for the shadow in the distance was growing more and more
distinct, and the suspicion with which he regarded her drove away every
particle of commiseration, and made him blind to the emotion welling up
in her eyes, hostile to the pathos in her voice.

She clasped her hands and let them drop limply in front of her as she
sank into her chair again.

"Oh, I am so lonely, so lonely," she murmured, "I don't know what to do.
If you would only help me. I know I behaved horribly to you, vilely; but
surely--surely you have some pity for me in my misfortune. I have no one
to turn to--no one--no one. If you would only help me to understand--if
you would only talk the matter over with me, it would be some relief."

"There can be no benefit in talking over what has passed--the best thing
is to forget it ever happened. That is what I have striven to do. If you
returned my letters of your own free will, you were merely exercising a
right to which you were perfectly entitled. You preferred Eustace to
me, that is all."

"All?" she echoed in a tone of amazement. "All? Is that what you
thought? Is that what you think?"

"What else can I think?" he retorted. "If you chose for yourself----"

She sprang up and faced him with widely opened, gleaming eyes.

"I did not," she cried. "I did not. There! Now you know. It was a----"

She stopped abruptly, staring with eyes so full of entreaty that he
looked away from her lest the emotion roused by her words, by her
attitude and her e