“I mean,” she said, growing grave, and speaking with a sudden, earnest vehemence, “that you degrade the word devotion, when you call the feeling you have to offer me by that name. I know too well what real devotion means. I have too just an estimate of its goodness and strength to call the cool regard you have for me devotion! A cool regard between cousins does well enough, but that feeling in connection with marriage is another thing, and I had better tell you, here and now, that I would live my life out unloved and alone, sooner than I would wrong myself by accepting such a counterfeit devotion as this that you offer me.” Decourcy, who was, of course, entirely ignorant of the ground on which Margaret’s strong feeling was based, heard her with amazement. The only explanation that suggested itself was that some one, who happened to be aware of his rather well-known affair with Mrs. Vere, had informed his cousin. It was, therefore, with a tone of injured gentleness, that he said: “Margaret, you surprise and grieve me inexpressibly by such words as those. I can only account for them by the possibility of some one’s having given you false ideas about me. There are always people to do these things, unfortunately,” he went on, with a little sigh of patient resignation; “but you should have hesitated before believing a story to my disadvantage. I would have been more just to you.” “There has been no story told,” said Margaret. “If there were any stories to tell, they have been kept from me. Do not let us pursue this topic, Alan, and when we drop it now, let it be forever. It is quite out of the question that we can ever be more to each other than we are now.” “As you have said it,” he replied, “my only course is a silent acquiescence. Painful and disappointing as such a decision is to me, since it is your decision I have no word to say against it. But with regard to the lightness and insincerity you have charged me with, I have a right to speak and I must.” Reassured by Margaret’s assertion that no one had maligned him to her, he felt strong to defend himself, and it was, therefore, in the most urgent tone that he said: “I feel it hard, Margaret, very hard, that you should harbor such opinions of me, when my thoughts of you have been all tenderness and trust. Was it not enough that you should deprive me, at one blow, of the hope that I have cherished as my dearest wish for the future, without adding to the bitterness of that disappointment, the still keener one of feeling that I must endure your contempt?” There was no doubt of his earnestness now. He was fired by a genuine interest, and he longed to recover the good opinion of this spirited, high-souled girl more than he had longed for anything for years. “You were never unreasonable, Margaret,” he went on, “and therefore I feel sure I may rely upon you to give me your reasons for this change toward me--for you will not deny that you are changed.”