l thing
reflected in the eyes of all my visitors. I wish I could become
commonplace--without the slightest thing queer about me. Sometimes I
feel like taking a dose of poison and ending it all."

"Don't do that," Britt replied, soberly. "You mustn't even say such a
thing. I wish I could help you, but I see no way so long as your own
parents and Clarke himself are your guides; but if at any time you
will give me the authority"--here his voice became stern--"I will see
that you are not troubled by any outside influence."

"You are very kind," she said, but her face expressed only a troubled
liking, and he pressed her hand in both of his and silently went away.

Young Clinton Ward also came seeking, boyish, eager, contemptuous of
any barrier so illusory as the fact of her trances, which she
confessed to him. Her words hardly impressed themselves on his mind,
and he replied, flippantly: "That cuts no ice with me. You couldn't be
anything I wouldn't like. You're living too close and your nerves are
sort of frazzled. What you need is a jolly good time. Come back to
Boston and forget all about this business. Come, I want folks to meet
you. My mother knows how I feel about you, and is crazy to see you."

"What would she say if she knew what I have told you?" she asked,
bitterly.

"She won't mind--after she sees you," he answered, loyally. "No one
can know you without--without--Oh, hang it, Viola, you know what I
mean. Nothing matters when you love a person. I want you, no matter
what any one says. And, besides, I don't see why you can't just chuck
the whole blooming business. I'll chuck Clarke out o' the window, if
you say the word. He's just trying to work you, and--"

"You mustn't talk that way, Clinton."

"Why not? It's true."

"Well, because--" She hesitated, then said, as if to end her own
uncertainty: "I am committed to this life--and to him. My way is
marked out, and I must walk in it."

The young fellow was hard hit. He sat looking at her with eyes of
consternation and awe. He tried to speak, but could not for a little
while; at last he made a second trial. "Do you mean--you _don't_
mean--"

"Yes, I mean--all you think I mean," she answered, and then her
fortitude failed her, and she turned away, her eyes filled with hot
tears.

He rose awkwardly, all his jaunty self-confidence gone. "I take my
medicine. It's all right. I hope you'll be happy--" He broke off with
quivering lips.

"I shall never be happy