.

"Griffith!" she said, "Grif!--dear old fellow. You don't know what you
are saying. Oh! don't--don't!"

Her horror brought him to his senses again; but he had terrified her
so that she was trembling all over, and clung to him nervously when he
tried to console her.

"It is n't like _you_ to speak in such a way," she faltered, in the
midst of her tears. "Oh, how dreadfully wrong things must be getting, to
make you so cruel!"

It took so long a time to reassure and restore her to her calmness, that
he repented his rashness a dozen times. But he managed to comfort her at
length, though to the last she was tearful and dejected, and her voice
was broken with soft, sorrowful little catch-ings of the breath.

"Don't let us talk about Ralph Gowan," she pleaded, when he
had persuaded her to walk on with him again. "Let us talk about
ourselves,--we are always safe when we talk about ourselves," with an
innocent, mournful smile.

And so they talked about themselves. He would have talked of anything
on earth to please her then. Talking of themselves, of course, implied
talking nonsense,--affectionate, sympathetic nonsense, but still
nonsense; and so, for a while, they strolled on together, and were as
tenderly foolish and disconnected as two people could possibly be.

But, in spite of her resolution to avoid the subject, Dolly could not
help drifting back to Ralph Gowan. "Griffith," she said, plaintively,
"you are very jealous of him."

"I know that," he answered.

"But don't you _know_," in desperate appeal, "that there is n't the
slightest need for you to be jealous of anybody?"

"I know," he returned, dejectedly, "that I am a very wretched fellow
sometimes."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Dolly.

"I know," he went on, "that seven years is a long probation, and that
the prospect of another seven, or another two, for the matter of that,
would drive me mad. I know I am growing envious and distrustful; I
know that there are times when I hate that fellow so savagely that I am
ashamed of myself. Dolly, what has he ever done that he should saunter
on the sunny side, clad in purple and fine linen all his life? The money
he throws away in a year would furnish the house at Putney."

"Oh, dear!" burst forth Dolly. "You _are_ going wrong. It is all because
I am not there to take care of you, too. Those are not the sentiments of
Vagabondia, Grif."

"No," dryly; "they are of the earth, earthy."

Dolly shook her head dolefully.

"