of course must put an end to his interference. He
thought that if he saw her he might learn all this, and therefore he
went to Queen Anne Street.

"Of course he must come if he will," she said to herself when she
received his note. "It can make no matter. He will say nothing half
so hard to me as what I say to myself all day long." But when the
morning came, and the hour came, and the knock at the door for which
her ears were on the alert, her heart misgave her, and she felt that
the present moment of her punishment, though not the heaviest, would
still be hard to bear.

He came slowly up-stairs,--his step was ever slow,--and gently opened
the door for himself. Then, before he even looked at her, he closed
it again. I do not know how to explain that it was so; but it was
this perfect command of himself at all seasons which had in part made
Alice afraid of him, and drove her to believe that they were not
fitted for each other. She, when he thus turned for a moment from
her, and then walked slowly towards her, stood with both her hands
leaning on the centre table of the room, and with her eyes fixed upon
its surface.

"Alice," he said, walking up to her very slowly.

Her whole frame shuddered as she heard the sweetness of his voice.
Had I not better tell the truth of her at once? Oh, if she could only
have been his again! What madness during these last six months had
driven her to such a plight as this! The old love came back upon
her. Nay; it had never gone. But that trust in his love returned to
her,--that trust which told her that such love and such worth would
have sufficed to make her happy. But this confidence in him was
worthless now! Even though he should desire it, she could not change
again.

"Alice," he said again. And then, as slowly she looked up at him, he
asked her for her hand. "You may give it me," he said, "as to an old
friend." She put her hand in his hand, and then, withdrawing it, felt
that she must never trust herself to do so again.

"Alice," he continued, "I do not expect you to say much to me; but
there is a question or two which I think you will answer. Has a day
been fixed for this marriage?"

"No," she said.

"Will it be in a month?"

"Oh, no;--not for a year," she replied hurriedly;--and he knew at
once by her voice that she already dreaded this new wedlock. Whatever
of anger he might before have felt for her was banished. She had
brought herself by her ill-judgement,--by her ign