added the girl, after a moment's
pause. "I only say 'afraid' on your account; on my own, I don't see any
reason why I shouldn't say it if it was true."

Then, in answer, not to any words from Margaret, but to some slight
movement of hers, "You don't believe it," she went on; "you don't
believe I cared for him. _He_ believed me, at any rate; he couldn't help
it! At that moment I cared for him more than I cared for anybody in the
world, and he saw that I did; it was easy enough to see. So that was the
way of it. We came back engaged. And I _did_ like him so much!--isn't it
odd? I thought him wonderful. I don't suppose he has changed. But I
have. He is probably wonderful still; but I don't care about him any
more. And that is what I cannot understand--that he has not seen in all
this time how different I am, has not seen how completely the feeling,
whatever it was, that I had for him has gone. It seems to me that
anybody not blind ought to have seen it long ago, for it didn't last but
a very little while. And then, too, not to have seen it since Lucian
came back!"

"He wouldn't allow himself to think such things of you."

"Now you are angry with me," said Garda, not turning her head, but
putting up one hand caressingly on Margaret's arm. "Why should you be
angry? What have I done but change? Can I help changing? _I_ don't do
it; it does itself; it _happens_. You needn't try to tell me that one
love, if a true one, lasts forever, because it's nothing of the kind.
Look at second marriages. I really cared for Evert. And now I don't care
for him. But I don't see that I am to blame for either the one or the
other; people don't care for people because they _try_ to, but because
it comes in spite of them; and it's the same way when it stops. I
acknowledge, Margaret, that _you_ are one of the kind to care once and
forever. But there are very few women like you, I am sure."

She turned as she said this, in order to look up at her friend; then she
sprang from her place on the rug and stood beside her, her attitude was
almost a protecting one. "Oh," she said, "how I hate the people who make
you so unhappy!"

"No one does that," said Margaret. She rose.

"Are you going?"

"Yes; I am tired."

"I suppose I oughtn't to keep you," said Garda, regretfully,
"Well,--it's understood, then, that I tell Evert to-morrow."

Margaret, who was going towards the door, stopped. She waited a moment,
then she said--"Even if you break the eng