at, I deserve my--_decisive rejection!_ It was
proper and just in you to say '_No!_'"

Woman's will conquered for one brief second. Spite of wind and spite
of him, Miss Wood began:

"'_No?_' I--"

"Yes, '_no!_'" broke in the relentless machinery. It ground on
implacable, though great beads stood on Andy's brow from sheer terror
lest he run down before the end. "_No!_ as firmly, as emphatically as
you said it to me last night. Indeed, I honor you the more for flatly
refusing the man who, in forgetting his self-respect, forgot his
respect--_for you!_ But, Miss Rose, while I pledge you my honor never,
_never_ to speak to you again _of love_, I may still be--_your
friend!_"

The bays were bowling down the street again by this time; when another
_kismet_, in small and ugly canine form, flew at their heads with yelp
and snarl. Rearing with one impulse, the spirited pair lunged forward
and flew past the now twinkling lamps in a wild gallop. Andy pulled
them down at last; their swinging trot replacing the dangerous rush.
The Wood mansion was almost in sight; but the Ancient Mariner was a
tyro to Andy Browne in the way he fixed that off-horse's right ear
with stony stare.

He might have looked round in perfect safety. The lithe figure by him
sat gracefully erect. The face a trifle pale; the lips set tight
against each other, with the blood pressed out of them, were not
unnatural in that cutting wind. The eyes, fixed straight ahead, as his
own, gleamed gray and cold; only a half-closing of the lids, once or
twice, hiding an ugly light reflecting through them from the busy
brain behind. But Andy never turned once until he brought up the bays
stock still and leaped down to offer his hand to the lady at her own
door.

She took it, naturally; springing to the ground as lightly as any
_debutante_ of the season. Not one trace of annoyance, even, showed on
that best educated face.

"Andy, we _are_ old friends," she said, offering her hand frankly.

He took it mechanically, with a dazed soft of feeling that he must be
even a bigger fool than he felt himself.

"Real friends," Miss Wood went on, pleasantly, "and I'll prove it to
you now. _You_ have acted like a man of honor to me; _I_ will betray
one little confidence, and make two people happy!"

The man still stood dumb; and his eye furtively wandered to the pawing
off-horse, as if to take _his_ confidence as to what it meant. The
woman's next words came slowly, and she smi