nestly, to see how she received my
words.

And here let me confess that such a mode of address was not generous or
chivalrous, nor was it at all in good taste. True chivalry would have
scorned to remind another of an obligation conferred; but then, you
see, this was a very peculiar case. In love, my boy, all the ordinary
rules of life, and that sort of thing, you know, must give way to the
exigencies of the hour. And this was a moment of dire exigency, in
which much had to be said in the most energetic manner. Besides, I
spoke what I thought, and that's my chief excuse after all.

I stopped and looked at her; but, as I looked, I did not feel reason to
be satisfied with my success so far. She retreated a step, and tried to
withdraw her hand. She looked at me with a face of perplexity and
despair. Seeing this, I let go her hand. She clasped both hands
together, and looked at me in silence.

"What!" said I, tragically, yet sincerely--for a great, dark, bitter
disappointment rose up within me--"what! Is all this nothing? Has it
all been nothing to you? Alas! what else could I expect? I might have
known it all. No. You never thought of me. You could not, I was less
than the driver to you. If you had thought of me, you never would have run
away and left me when I was wandering over the country thinking
only of you, with all my heart yearning after you, and seeking only for
some help to send you. And yet there was that in our journey which
might at least have elicited from you some word of sympathy."

There again, my friend, I was ungenerous, unchivalrous, and all that.
Bad enough is it to remind one of favors done; but, on the heels of
that, to go deliberately to work and reproach one for want of
gratitude, is ten times worse. By Jove! And for this, as for the other,
my only excuse is the exigencies of the hour.

Meanwhile she stood with an increasing perplexity and grief in every
look and gesture. She cast at me a look of utter despair. She wrung her
hands; and at last, as I ended, she exclaimed:

"Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do? Oh, dear! Oh, what a dreadful,
dreadful thing! Oh, dear!"

Her evident distress touched me to the heart. Evidently, she was
compromised with Jack, and was embarrassed by this.

"Follow your own heart," said I, mournfully. "But say--can you not give
me some hope? Can you not give me one kind word?"

"Oh, dear!" she cried; "it's dreadful. I don't know what to do. It's
all a mistake. O