the arbor where I had so often
discoursed to Sylvia about children's cruelty to birds. Through
the fluttering leaves the sunlight dripped as a weightless shower
of gold, and the long pendants of young fruit swayed gently in
their cool waxen greenness. Where some rotting planks crossed the
top of the arbor a blue-jay sat on her coarse nest; and presently
the mate flew to her with a worm, and then talked to her in a low
voice, as much as saying that they must now leave the place forever.
I was thinking how love softens even the voice of this file-throated
screamer, when along the garden walk came the rustle of a woman's
clothes, and, springing up, I stood face to face with Georgiana.

"What have you done?" she implored.

"What have _you_ done? I answered as quickly.

"Oh, Adam, _Adam_! You have killed it! How could you? How could
you?"

". . . Is he dead, Georgiana? Is he dead?. . ."

I forgot everything else, and pulling my hat down over my eyes,
turned from her in the helpless shock of silence that came with
those irreparable words.

Then in ungovernable anger, suffering, remorse, I turned upon her
where she sat: "It is _you_ who killed him! Why do you come here
to blame me? And now you pretend to be sorry. You felt no pity
when pity would have done some good. Trifler! Hypocrite!

"It is false!" she cried, her words flashing from her whole
countenance, her form drawn up to repel the shock of the blow.

"Did you not ask me for him?"

"No!"

"Oh, deny it all! It is a falsehood--invented by me on the spot.
You know nothing of it! You did not ask me to do this! And when
I have yielded, you have not run to reproach me here and to cry,
'How could you? How could you?'"

"No! No! Every word of it--"

"Untruth added to it all! Oh, that I should have been so deceived,
blinded, taken in!"

"Adam!"

"Lovely innocence! It is too much! Go away!"

"I will not _stand_ this any longer!" she cried. "I _will_ go
away; but not till I have told you why I have acted as I have."

"It is too late for that! I do not care to hear!"

"Then you _shall_ hear!" she replied. "You shall know that it is
because I have believed you capable of speaking to me as you have
just spoken; believed you at heart unsparing and unjust. You think
I asked you to do what you have done? No! I asked you whether
you would be willing to do it; and when you said you would _not_,
I saw then--by your voice, your eyes, your