do so."

I sat down before her, wondering what was coming.

"You remember the night of your--your father's--death?"

"Yes, mother."

"He said it was his wish, and the wish of Mr. Morton that you should
wed Ruth."

"Yes," I said, my heart beating violently.

"Roger, that must never be!"

"Why?"

I spoke harshly, for my heart became hard as a stone, and yet it seemed
to grow too big for my bosom.

"Because," she answered, her voice trembling as she did so, "she
loathes, shudders at the thought of marrying you."

"How dare you say this?" I cried angrily, and yet I knew her words were
true. Ruth's face had told me the same story only that very evening.

"If you wish to drive her mad, kill her, murder her!" went on my
mother, "ask her to do as her father wishes."

"What is there in me to drive her mad, or to murder her?" I cried. "I
have always been kind to her."

"Nothing, nothing, Roger. She loves you as a brother. You have been
very good to her. None of us forget that twice you saved her life."

"Then why do you say she loathes me?"

"Can you not see what I mean? She does not loathe you as a brother;
but she loathes the thought of your being her husband, and were you to
insist on a marriage, you would kill her!"

"Why? You say she loves me as a brother; why, then, should the other
thought be so terribly abhorrent? Could she not in time learn to give
me more than a brother's love?"

"Never!"

"Why?"

"Because she loves another!"

"Another! Who?"

"Can you not guess?"

Guess! Ah, yes; I could indeed. Had I not seen it for weeks? My
mother need not tell me more. I knew perfectly well.

"Surely you have seen that they have been lovers from childhood," she
went on. "She has been all in all to him, while--well, you must have
seen how she regarded him. He did not speak to her about it, however,
until he came home from Oxford, and then, on the day of his arrival, he
told her what he had felt for years."

"And she?"

"She told him--that--what in short he had been longing to hear, and,
although we knew it not, they became betrothed."

It was what I had thought, it did not surprise me, and yet I felt sick
and giddy. It was some time before I could speak, and then I could
only stammer out:

"And she promised to be his wife?"

My mother nodded.

No words can describe what I felt, for never until then did I realise
how I loved her, or what pain it was for me to lose her.

"Do