no
more.

When Mr. Floyd first came he had shaken me roughly by the shoulder,
laughing in my face as he told me he had just come from Belfield,
where he had spent six hours with my mother. I felt ashamed to look
him in the eyes when I remembered my interference, and I began to
debate the question in my own mind whether I had not better yield my
boyish whim of pride and exclusive, domineering affection to this
noble, splendid gentleman, whom I loved better and better every day.

The week appointed for his visit at The Headlands had almost passed.
It was a Thursday morning, and we were to set out early the ensuing
day, when he asked me to walk with him an hour on the bluff, as he had
something to speak to me about. It was a lovely day: the fogs were
rolling off the water, and disclosed a sea of chrysoprase beneath.

"In my old courting-days," began Mr. Floyd at once, "I used to walk
here with Alice. We were engaged six weeks, and looking back
now eleven years the days seem all like this. It was the Indian
summer-time."

I was dumb, but stared into his face, which showed emotion, and
pressed his arm bashfully.

"I was thirty-four when I first met her," he went on, "and she was
just half my age. She was an heiress and I was poor, yet the world
called me no bad match for her. Still, I felt as if I could not marry
a rich woman: I went away, and tried to forget her, but stole back to
the Point, hoping to get one glimpse of her sweet face by stealth.
Then when I saw her I could not go away again, nor did she want me to
go. Mr. Raymond hated me in those days, yet we were so strong against
him that he gave his consent, and we were married on just such a
November day as this. It seems like a dream, Floyd, that I, so long a
lonely man, without a private joy, could ever have been so happy as I
was then. I loved her--the light of her eyes and the white lids that
covered them when I looked at her; the smile on her parted lips; the
way her hair curled away from her temples; the little dimples all over
her hands; her voice, her little ways. And while I loved her like
that, before the first year of my happiness had passed she was dead. I
hope you will never know what that means. That she had left me a child
was nothing to me: I was only a rapturous lover, and had not begun to
long for baby voices and upturned children's faces. When, finally,
I did turn to Helen, it was as you see now: to part her from her
grandfather would be to w