I was a fool."

Her tears started again. And at sight of them I was seized with such
remorse that I could have bitten my tongue in two.

"Forgive me, Dorothy, if you can," I implored. "I did not mean it. Nor
did I presume to think you loved me. I have adored,--I shall be content
to adore from far below. And I stayed,--I stayed that I might save you
if a danger threatened."

"Danger!" she exclaimed, catching her breath.

"I will come to the point," I said. "I stayed to save you from the Duke
of Chartersea."

She grasped the balcony rail, and I think would have fallen but for my
arm. Then she straightened, and only the quiver of her lip marked the
effort.

"To save me from the Duke of Chartersea?" she said, so coldly that my
conviction was shaken. "Explain yourself, sir."

"You cannot love him!" I cried, amazed.

She flashed upon me a glance I shall never forget.

"Richard Carvel," she said, "you have gone too far. Though you have been
my friend all my life, there are some things which even you cannot say
to me."

And she left me abruptly and went into the house, her head flung back.
And I followed in a tumult of mortification and wounded pride, in such
a state of dejection that I wished I had never been born. But hers was a
nature of surprises, and impulsive, like my own. Beside the cabinet she
turned, calm again, all trace of anger vanished from her face. Drawing
a hawthorn sprig from a porcelain vase I had given her, she put it in my
hand.

"Let us forget this, Richard," said she; "we have both been very
foolish."

Forget, indeed! Unless Heaven had robbed me of reason, had torn the past
from me at a single stroke. I could not have forgotten. When I reached
my lodgings I sent the anxious Banks about his business and threw myself
in a great chair before the window, the chair she had chosen. Strange to
say, I had no sensation save numbness. The time must have been about
two of the clock: I took no account of it. I recall Banks coming timidly
back with the news that two gentlemen had called. I bade him send
them away. Would my honour not have Mrs. Marble cook my dinner, and be
dressed for Lady Pembroke's ball? I sent him off again, harshly.

After a long while the slamming of a coach door roused me, and I was
straightway seized with such an agony of mind that I could have cried
aloud. 'Twas like the pain of blood flowing back into a frozen limb.
Darkness was fast gathering as I reached the street and began