"Say what you like now, I am ready," groaned Tregurtha, with hopeless resolution. There was a long, dreary pause. Rosetta sat still, gazing away over the sunny lawn, and Tregurtha cared not even to see her answer in her face--he knew it; he looked before him also, and listlessly their thoughts dwelt on the daisies, the butterflies playing above them, the shifts of light and shadow, and the birds' half dreamlike song. "Oh, this is dreadful!" Rosetta at last broke out. Richard drew her nearer, and kept his arm round her, saying quietly: "I am sorry I distress you." "Oh, I wish I could suffer anything! I wish anything evil could have happened to me, if only I might not have hurt you so! I did not know it, Richard, I did not know it!" "No, of course I saw that. You are no flirt, sweetheart, or you would never have been troubled with me. Oh, well, it is over now--the worst part at least--and you must not be too soft-hearted, darling; you will have to break some hearts soon, so steel your own!" Rosetta gave a long, long sigh, like a child roused from deepest sleep. All this was so new to her, such a revelation of pathos, and herself so helplessly ignorant and unprepared, that she had never a word to say, and all her sixteen bright years of life seemed unreality before this woeful fact--her lover. Involuntarily she laid her head upon Tregurtha's shoulder as if he could help her; then, with a start, as she felt the tremor that went through him at her touch, she raised it up, and bent her startled eyes upon him while she said, so low, with such an effort: "I ought to try and tell you why I cannot--marry you. But what am I to say? I can find nothing reasonable. You would in your turn fail to understand the fancies of a child like me." "I should like to hear," said Tregurtha. "Talk to me as long as you will; say what you please to me; I should like to take back some little knowledge of you, instead of the shadowy hope which has now gone to range itself with the endless mass which space is not great enough to hold--men's illusions." His bitterness seemed to make his distress so real for Rosetta that she gave a deprecating cry and struggled with herself for several moments before she found the heart to continue speaking. Then tremulously she asked: "Should you care to marry me before I could love you?" "I don't know," said Tregurtha. "Now I am bewildered by my own love for you." "Listen, Mr. Tregurtha. I am only sixteen, as you know, and childish for that age. I have lived so much alone and so wrapped up in my examinations and out-of-door pursuits that I simply have never yet had occasion to think of marriage. You see, I have no lady relatives, except Lyndis--and she is so serious! I imagined love would find its own way to me, without my playing with it beforehand. _Now_ I see it needs practice." "Did the admiral never warn you of your future lovers?" here put in Tregurtha, with some incredulity.