with all his
brisk jauntiness shorn from him for the time, Lucy Ellen went up to
Cecily's room. She stood for a moment in the narrow doorway, with the
lamplight striking upward with a gruesome effect on her wan face.

"I've sent him away," she said lifelessly. "I've kept my promise,
Cecily."

There was silence for a moment. Cecily did not know what to say.
Suddenly Lucy Ellen burst out bitterly.

"I wish I was dead!"

Then she turned swiftly and ran across the hall to her own room.
Cecily gave a little moan of pain. This was her reward for all the
love she had lavished on Lucy Ellen.

"Anyway, it is all over," she said, looking dourly into the moonlit
boughs of the firs; "Lucy Ellen'll get over it. When Cromwell is gone
she'll forget all about him. I'm not going to fret. She promised, and
she wanted the promise first."

During the next fortnight tragedy held grim sway in the little
weather-gray house among the firs--a tragedy tempered with grim comedy
for Cecily, who, amid all her agony, could not help being amused at
Lucy Ellen's romantic way of sorrowing.

Lucy Ellen did her mornings' work listlessly and drooped through the
afternoons. Cecily would have felt it as a relief if Lucy Ellen had
upbraided her, but after her outburst on the night she sent Cromwell
away, Lucy Ellen never uttered a word of reproach or complaint.

One evening Cecily made a neighborly call in the village. Cromwell
Biron happened to be there and gallantly insisted upon seeing her
home.

She understood from Cromwell's unaltered manner that Lucy Ellen had
not told him why she had refused him. She felt a sudden admiration for
her cousin.

When they reached the house Cromwell halted suddenly in the banner of
light that streamed from the sitting-room window. They saw Lucy Ellen
sitting alone before the fire, her arms folded on the table, and her
head bowed on them. Her white cat sat unnoticed at the table beside
her. Cecily gave a gasp of surrender.

"You'd better come in," she said, harshly. "Lucy Ellen looks
lonesome."

Cromwell muttered sheepishly, "I'm afraid I wouldn't be company for
her. Lucy Ellen doesn't like me much--"

"Oh, doesn't she!" said Cecily, bitterly. "She likes you better than
she likes me for all I've--but it's no matter. It's been all my
fault--she'll explain. Tell her I said she could. Come in, I say."

She caught the still reluctant Cromwell by the arm and fairly dragged
him over the geranium beds and thro