I've wanted a good talk
with you, face to face,--not with a veil of commonplace people between.
You're not yourself among them. I like you best when your spirits are a
little ruffled, and your eye kindles, and your lip curls, as it does
now,--not when you say, "No, Sir," or "Yes, Ma'am," and smile as though
it were only skin-deep."

I started my horse.

"Let's be going, Jessie," I said. "It's our duty to feel insulted. He
accuses your mistress of being deceitful among her friends, and says he
likes her when she's cross."

He laughed lightly, and walked along by my side.

"How are your ladies? and when will Miss Lucy come to ride out with me?"
I asked, fearing a look into his eyes.

This brought him down. I knew it would.

He answered that she was well, and walked along with his head down,
quite like another man. At length he looked up, very pale, and put his
hand on my bridle.

"I want to put a case to you," he said. "Suppose a man to have made some
engagement before his mind was mature, and under a strong outside
pressure of which he was not aware. When he grows to a better knowledge
of the world and himself, and finds that he has been half cheated, and
that to keep his word will entail lasting misery and ruin on himself,
without really benefiting any one else, is he bound to keep it?"

I stopped an instant to press my heart back, and then I answered him.

"A promise is a promise, Mr. Ames. I have thought that a man of honor
valued his word more than happiness or life."

He flushed a moment, and then looked down again; and we walked on
slowly, without a word, over the stubbly ground, and through brooklets
and groves and thickets, towards home. If I could only reach there
before he spoke again! How could I hold out to do my duty, if I were
tempted any farther? At last he checked the horse, and, putting his hand
heavily on mine, looked me full in the face, while his was pale and
agitated.

"Rachel," he said, huskily, "if a man came to you and said, 'I am bound
to another; but my heart, my soul, my life are at your feet,' would you
turn him away?"

I gasped one long breath of fresh air.

"Do I look like a woman who would take a man's love at second hand?" I
said, haughtily. "Women like me _must_ respect the man they marry, Sir."

He dropped his hand, and turned away his head, with a deep-drawn breath.
I saw him stoop and lift himself again, as though some weight were laid
upon his shoulders. I saw the mu