On the morning following Earle hastened to Brackenside. He was longing to see his lady-love again; she was so kind to him when they parted--she had been so unusually gentle that he had longed for more kindness. He was at Brackenside before the breakfast was finished. One look at the beautiful face of his love sufficed; she was dreamy, abstracted; she seemed hardly to notice his entrance. No light came in her eyes as she spoke to him; she did not make room for him by her side. When he went up to her and tried to kiss the face he loved so well, she drew back, not angrily, but carelessly. "I never said you might kiss me every day, Earle," she said. "I know, my darling, but I cannot help it. It has grown into a custom now." "When anything becomes a custom it ceases to be a charm," she said, with unconscious philosophy. Earle looked down sadly at her. "Doris," he said, "you are so sadly changed to me, I cannot understand it, dear. You say that I have not displeased you?" "No," she said, carelessly, "I am not in the least displeased." "Then, what have I done, my darling? I love you too madly to suffer anything to come between us. If I could win your love by dying for it, I would cheerfully die. Tell me what I can do to make you as you were once to me?" She raised her head impatiently. "You are always talking nonsense, Earle. I cannot regulate my words and thoughts as I would regulate a clock. I cannot undertake to be always the same." "You are charming, but your variety used to be one of your greatest charms. I do not complain of that--the summer sky changes; it goes from crimson to blue, and then white--you changed from grave to gay, and in each mood you seemed to me most charming. It is not that now." "What is it, then?" she asked. He looked so wistfully at her that, if she had had any heart, it must have been touched. "I can hardly tell--I dare not even to myself say what your manner seems to me. Doris, you cannot surely repent of having promised to marry me--it cannot be that?" His honest eyes grew so dim with pain--his face grew so white--she would sooner, heartless coquette as she was, have stabbed him to the heart than have answered "Yes." She turned away from him. "I suppose you cannot help talking nonsense, Earle? I am not sentimental myself, and so much of it wearies me. When you can talk about anything else I shall be glad." As soon as she could she quitted the room, and Earle was at a loss to know what to do or say. He tried to comfort himself.