ions of relief.

"Oh, I don't care for anything, now, and I can do what I please! Gordon
may hate me, and I shall be sorry for him; but it 's not my fault, and I
owe him no reparation. No, no; I am free!"

"It 's only I who am not, I suppose," said Angela, "and the reparation
must come from me! If he is unhappy, I must take the responsibility."

"Ah yes, of course," said Bernard, kissing her.

"But why should he be unhappy?" asked Angela. "If I refused him, it was
what he wanted."

"He is hard to please," Bernard rejoined. "He has got a wife of his
own."

"If Blanche does n't please him, he is certainly difficult;" and Angela
mused a little. "But you told me the other day that they were getting on
so well."

"Yes, I believe I told you," Bernard answered, musing a little too.

"You are not attending to what I say."

"No, I am thinking of something else--I am thinking of what it was that
made you refuse him that way, at the last, after you had let your mother
hope." And Bernard stood there, smiling at her.

"Don't think any more; you will not find out," the girl declared,
turning away.

"Ah, it was cruel of you to let me think I was wrong all these years,"
he went on; "and, at the time, since you meant to refuse him, you might
have been more frank with me."

"I thought my fault had been that I was too frank."

"I was densely stupid, and you might have made me understand better."

"Ah," said Angela, "you ask a great deal of a girl!"

"Why have you let me go on so long thinking that my deluded words had
had an effect upon Gordon--feeling that I had done you a brutal wrong?
It was real to me, the wrong--and I have told you of the pangs and the
shame which, for so many months, it has cost me! Why have you never
undeceived me until to-day, and then only by accident?"

At this question Angela blushed a little; then she answered, smiling--

"It was my vengeance."

Bernard shook his head.

"That won't do--you don't mean it. You never cared--you were too proud
to care; and when I spoke to you about my fault, you did n't even know
what I meant. You might have told me, therefore, that my remorse
was idle, that what I said to Gordon had not been of the smallest
consequence, and that the rupture had come from yourself."

For some time Angela said nothing, then at last she gave him one of the
deeply serious looks with which her face was occasionally ornamented.

"If you want really to know, then--can't you see