however?" There is something almost
threatening in his tone now, as if he is defying her to deny his
assertion. It overwhelms her.

"Yes," she says again, and for the first time is struck by the wretched
meagreness of her replies.

"Well?" says Dysart, roughly. But this time not even the desolate
monosyllable rewards the keenness of his examination.

"Well?" says he again, going closer to her and resting his hand on the
wooden rail against which she, too, was leaning. He is So close to her
now that it is impossible to escape his scrutiny. "What am I to
understand by that? Tell me how you have decided." Getting no answer to
this either, he says, impatiently, "Tell me, Joyce."

"I refused him," says she at last in a low tone, and in a dull sort of
way, as if the matter is one of indifference to her.

"Ah!" He draws a long breath. "It is true?" he says, laying his hand on
hers as it lies on the top of the woodwork.

"Quite true."

"And yet--you have been crying?"

"You can see that," says she, petulantly. "You have taken pains to see
and to tell me of it. Do you think it is a pleasant thing to be told?
Most people," glancing angrily toward him--"everyone, I think--makes it
a point now-a-days not to see when one has been making a fool of
oneself; but you seem to take a delight in torturing me."

"Did it," says he bitterly, ignoring--perhaps not even hearing--her
outburst. "Did it cost you so much to refuse him?"

"It cost me nothing!" with a sudden effort, and a flash from her
beautiful eyes.

"Nothing?"

"I have said so! Nothing at all. It was mere nervousness, and
because--it reminded me of other things."

"Did he see you cry?" asks Dysart, tightening unconsciously his grasp
upon her hand.

"No. He was gone a long time, quite a long time, before it occurred to
me that I should like to cry. I," with a frugal smile, "indulged myself
very freely then, as you have seen."

Dysart draws a long breath of relief. It would have been intolerable to
him that Beauclerk should have known of her tears. He would not have
understood them. He would have taken possession of them, as it were.
They would have merely helped to pamper his self-conceit and smooth down
his ruffled pride. He would inevitably have placed such and such a
construction on them, one entirely to his own glorification.

"I shall leave you now with a lighter heart," says Felix presently--"now
that I know you are not going to marry that fellow."

"