In such a mood I met him. The house was full of guests, and I could not
bear to see him for the first time before so many eyes. I had watched,
as may well be believed, for his arrival, and a little before dark had
seen him enter his mother's house. He would surely come over soon; I
ran down the long walk, and paced up and down beneath the trees,
awaiting him. As soon as he came in sight I hastened toward him; he met
me kindly, but the change that had been in his letters was plainer yet
in his manner. It struck a chill to my heart.

"I suppose you have a house full of company, as usual," he remarked
presently, glancing at the brilliant windows.

"Yes, we have a number of friends staying with us. Will you go in and
see them? There are several whom you know."

"Thank you,--not to-night; I am not in the mood. And I have a good deal
to say to you, Juanita, that deeply concerns us both."

"Very well," I replied; "you had better tell me at once."

We walked on to the old garden-chair, and sat down as we had done that
memorable night. We were both silent,--I from disappointment and
apprehension. He, I suppose, was collecting himself for what he had to
say.

"Juanita," he spoke at last, taking my hand in his, "I do not know how
you will receive what I am about to tell you. But this I wish you to
promise me: that you will believe I speak for our best happiness,
--yours as well as mine."

"Go on," was all my reply.

"A year ago," he continued, "we sat here as we do now, and, spite of
doubts and misgivings and a broken resolution, I was happier than I
shall ever be again. I had loved you from the first moment I saw you,
with a passion such as I shall never feel for any other woman. But I
knew that we were both poor; I knew that marriage in our circumstances
could only be disastrous. It would wear out your youth in servile
cares; it would cripple my energies; it might even, after a time,
change our love to disgust and aversion. And so, though I believed
myself not indifferent to you, I resolved never to speak of my love,
but to struggle against it, and root it out of my heart. You know how
differently it happened. Your changed manner, your averted looks, gave
me much pain. I feared to have offended you, or in some way forfeited
your esteem. I brought you here to ask an explanation. I said,
'Juanita, are you no longer my friend?' You know what followed; the
violence of your emotion showed me all. You remember?"

Did I no