"Yes, meanness, deceit, lies, anything--so long as it was done for her sake." "I don't believe that would be the case with Margaret. Once disgust her, and you lose her love." "Then she can't have much to give," retorted Wyvis. Janetta was silent. In her secret heart she did not think that Margaret _could_ love very deeply--that, indeed, she had not much to give. "Well, what's the upshot?" said her cousin, at last, in a dogged tone. "Are you satisfied at last?" "I shall be better satisfied when you make things plain to the Adairs. You have no right to win Margaret's heart in this secret way. You blamed Cuthbert for making love to Nora. It is far worse for you to do it to Margaret Adair." "I am so much beneath her, am I not?" said Wyvis, with a sneer. And then he once more spoke eagerly. "I _am_ beneath her: I am as the dust under her feet. Don't you think I know that? I'll tell you what, Janetta, when I first saw her and spoke to her--here, in this room, if you remember--I thought that she was like a being from another world. I had never seen anyone like her. She is the fairest, sweetest of women, and I would not harm her for the world." "I don't know whether I ought even to listen to you," said Janetta, in a troubled voice and with averted head. "You know, many people would say that you were in the wrong altogether--that you were not free----" "Then they would say a lie! I am legally free, I believe, and morally free, I am certain. I thank God for it. I have suffered enough." He looked so stern, so uncompromising, that Janetta hastened to take refuge in concrete facts. "But you will tell Margaret everything?" "In my own good time." "Do promise me that you will not marry her without letting her know--if ever it comes, to a talk of your marriage." "_If ever?_ It will come very soon, I hope. But I'll promise nothing. And you must not make mischief." "I am like you--I will promise nothing." "I shall never forgive you, if you step between Margaret and me," said Wyvis. "I shall never step between you, I hope," said Janetta, in a dispirited tone. "But it is better for me to promise nothing more." Wyvis shrugged his shoulders, as if he thought it useless to argue with her. She was sorry for the apparently unfriendly terms on which they seemed likely to part; and it was a relief to her when, as they were saying good-bye, he looked into her face rather wistfully and said, "Wish me success, Janetta, after all." "I wish you every happiness," she said. But whether that meant success or not it would have been hard to say. She saw him take his departure, with little Julian clinging to his hand, and then she set about her household duties in her usual self-contained and steadfast way. But her heart ached sadly--she did not quite know why--and when she went to bed that night she lay awake for many weary hours, weeping silently, but passionately, over the sorrow that, she foresaw for her dearest friends, and, perhaps, also for herself.