At last I heard a step, and looking through the leaves I saw the object of my thoughts coming through the garden, reading a letter. My eyes glistened with triumph. "The chance I coveted has come," I muttered, and I watched her intently. She soon crushed the letter in her hand and came swiftly toward the arbor, with a face so full of deep and almost wild distress that my heart relented, and I resolved to be as gentle as I before had intended to be decisive and argumentative. I hastily changed my seat to the angle by the entrance, so that I could intercept her should she try to escape the interview. She entered, and throwing herself down on the seat, buried her face in her arm. "Miss Warren," I began. She started up with a passionate gesture. "You have no right to intrude on me now," she said, almost sternly. "Pardon me, were I not here when you entered, I would still have a right to come. You are in deep distress. Why must I be inhuman any more than yourself? You have at least promised me friendship, but you treat me like an enemy." "You have been my worst enemy." "I take issue with you there at once. I've never had a thought toward you that was not most kind and loyal. "Loyal!" she replied, bitterly; "that word in itself is a stab." "Miss Warren," I said, very gently, "you make discord in the old garden to-day." She dropped her letter on the ground and sank on the seat again. Such a passion of sobs shook her slight frame that I trembled with apprehension. But I kept quiet, believing that Nature could care for her child better than I could, and that her outburst of feeling would bring relief. At last, as she became a little more self-controlled, I said, gravely and kindly: "There must be some deep cause for this deep grief." "Oh, what shall I do?" she sobbed. "What shall I do? I wish the earth would open and swallow me up." "That wish is as vain as it is cruel. I wish you would tell me all, and let me help you. I think I deserve it at your hands." "Well, since you know so much, you may as well know all. It doesn't matter now, since every one will soon know. He has written that his business will take him to Europe within a month--that we must be married--that he will bring his sister here to-night to help me make arrangements. Oh! oh! I'd rather die than ever see him again. I've wronged him so cruelly, so causelessly." In wild exultation I snatched a pocketbook from my coat and cried: "Miss Warren--Emily--do you remember this little York and Lancaster bud that you gave me the day we first met? Do you remember my half-jesting, random words, 'To the victor belong the spoils'? See, the victor is at your feet." She sprang up and turned her back upon me. "Rise!" she said, in a voice so cold and stern that, bewildered, I obeyed. She soon became as calm as before she had been passionate and unrestrained in her grief; but it was a stony quietness that chilled and disheartened me before she spoke.