“Ah, child, it is selfish of me to make you talk!” cried Mrs. Dale. “You are faint, and must rest now. Come and talk to me some other time.” Mabin overcame the faintness which had seized her, and quite suddenly raised her head again. The little excitement of the hope held out to her brought all her senses back. “Come and see you! Oh, may I? I should like to so much!” The girl almost nestled, as she spoke, against her new friend. But over Mrs. Dale’s fair, childlike face there came at once a sort of shadow, as if a terrible remembrance had suddenly taken the power for all pleasurable emotion from her. It almost seemed to Mabin that the little hands made a movement as if to push her away. And then there burst forth from the infantile red lips some words which struck terror into her young hearer, so bitter, so full of sadness, of biting remorse, were they: “No, child, no. You must not come. _I am too wicked!_” The girl was struck dumb. She wanted to comfort pretty Mrs. Dale; she wanted to laugh at her self-accusation, to express incredulity, amusement. But in the face of that look of anguish, of that inexpressibly mournful cry straight from the heart, she could not even open her lips. She knew that there was some grief here which no words of comfort could touch. So deeply absorbed was she in the silent compassion which kept her with lowered eyelids and mute lips, that she was quite startled when Mrs. Dale’s voice, speaking in her ordinary tones, struck again upon her ear. “That young fellow who picked you up is one of the Vicar’s sons, isn’t he?” “Yes,” answered Mabin in a rather colder voice. “He seems a very nice lad, and very much interested in--somebody?” suggested Mrs. Dale archly. Mabin laughed. “Yes, so he is. But it is not the ‘somebody’ you mean,” answered she. “Mrs. Bonnington, that’s his mother, says he can think about nothing but--Mrs. Dale!” Again the sweet face changed; and it was in a low voice full of sadness that the lady in black said, slowly and deliberately: “I hope with all my heart that she has made a mistake.” Then, with a rapid gesture, as if brushing away some thought which was full of untold terror, she added with a shudder: “Don’t let us talk about it. It is too horrible!” CHAPTER III. AN INVITATION AND A WARNING. Mabin’s sprained ankle was a more serious affair than she had supposed. For a month she never left the house, and for another she went out in a wheel-chair, or hopped about on a pair of crutches. And during all that time she caught no glimpse of the pretty neighbor who had done her such eminent service at the time of the accident. In vain she had hung about the road outside “The Towers” looking up at the west side of the house, which was built into the wall alongside the road, trying to distinguish the fair, blue-eyed face at one of the windows which peeped sombrely out of the ivy.