Emily--if you please."

He had answered with the quaint gravity which was peculiar to him; but
he was already conscious of a sense of discouragement. Her composure was
a bad sign--from his point of view.

"My time will come, I daresay," she proceeded. "At present I
know nothing of love, by experience; I only know what some of my
schoolfellows talk about in secret. Judging by what they tell me, a
girl blushes when her lover pleads with her to favor his addresses. Am I
blushing?"

"Must I speak plainly, too?" Alban asked.

"If you have no objection," she answered, as composedly as if she had
been addressing her grandfather.

"Then, Miss Emily, I must say--you are not blushing."

She went on. "Another token of love--as I am informed--is to tremble. Am
I trembling?"

"No."

"Am I too confused to look at you?"

"No."

"Do I walk away with dignity--and then stop, and steal a timid glance at
my lover, over my shoulder?"

"I wish you did!"

"A plain answer, Mr. Morris! Yes or No."

"No--of course."

"In one last word, do I give you any sort of encouragement to try
again?"

"In one last word, I have made a fool of myself--and you have taken the
kindest possible way of telling me so."

This time, she made no attempt to reply in his own tone. The
good-humored gayety of her manner disappeared. She was in
earnest--truly, sadly in earnest--when she said her next words.

"Is it not best, in your own interests, that we should bid each other
good-by?" she asked. "In the time to come--when you only remember how
kind you once were to me--we may look forward to meeting again. After
all that you have suffered, so bitterly and so undeservedly, don't, pray
don't, make me feel that another woman has behaved cruelly to you, and
that I--so grieved to distress you--am that heartless creature!"

Never in her life had she been so irresistibly charming as she was at
that moment. Her sweet nature showed all its innocent pity for him in
her face.

He saw it--he felt it--he was not unworthy of it. In silence, he lifted
her hand to his lips. He turned pale as he kissed it.

"Say that you agree with me?" she pleaded.

"I obey you."

As he answered, he pointed to the lawn at their feet. "Look," he said,
"at that dead leaf which the air is wafting over the grass. Is it
possible that such sympathy as you feel for Me, such love as I feel for
You, can waste, wither, and fall to the ground like that leaf? I leave
you, Emily--wit