am not so fond of him as to want to
ring the changes on his name!"

"It was nothing but a nightmare dream, Le, and I wish to forget all about
it."

"Then you never loved him----"

"Loved him!" interrupted Odalite, with flushing cheeks and flashing eyes.
"Who ever imagined that I could ever love him? I never told you that I
loved him, Le."

"No, by Jove, so you never did! You never told me that you loved him; and
you did tell me that you had never let him kiss you!" exclaimed Le, with a
new ring of joy in his voice and a new light of joy in his eyes.

"No," said Odalite. "It was my greatest merit and my worst fault that I
did not love him when I consented to marry him. I was wrong, under any
inducement, to consent to such a union; but, Le, if I had loved him, I
must have been something of a kindred spirit to him! And that, you know, I
am not."

"Odalite!" said the young man, taking her hand between both of his and
trying to calm his tumultuous feelings, and to speak quietly, while they
slackened their pace and walked very slowly; "Odalite, darling, I had a
long interview with your father yesterday, in which we talked over all
these matters. He believes that your fancy and imagination were
fascinated, captivated by the arts of that man, who shall be nameless,
because I cannot bear to utter, nor you to hear, the accursed name. Your
father, however, gave me permission to have this final talk with you, on
certain conditions, which I promised to keep."

Odalite looked up, anxiously, into his face.

"My darling," he said, as he caressed the hand he held, "when I asked you
to take this walk with me to-night, it was because I knew that you were
free in hand, at least, to receive the proposal that I came to make you;
it was not that we should immediately renew the old engagement that bound
our hearts and souls together from our childhood up to the time when the
stranger came between us, for I did not know then that your heart, as well
as your hand, was free. I thought that it would take time to heal the
wound that I supposed you had received in the sudden rupture of your
marriage; but that, in time, your woman's pride, your sense of honor and
your conscientiousness would enable you to conquer any lingering interest
you might feel in that man. So I came here not to plead for an immediate
renewal of our precious betrothal, but only to plead as the best grace you
might give me that we might correspond, as brother and sister