It was a very warm day, even for May; but she was clothed from head to foot in heavy mourning draped with crape. Her golden hair was brushed straight back from her temples and gathered into a simple coil fastened with a comb of jet. From that somber setting her fair face and bright hair shone like a star. "You are pale, Bonnibel; I trust you have not been ill," exclaimed the ancient suitor anxiously. "I am as well as usual," she answered, with a slight, cold smile. They sat down, and the ardent lover at once plunged into the subject nearest his heart. "Bonnibel, I have come for my answer, you know," he said. "I hope and trust it may be a favorable one." The girl's sweeping lashes lifted a moment from her pale cheeks, and her blue eyes regarded him sadly; but she did not speak. He bent down and lifted her white, listless hand in his and held it fondly. "My dear, shall it be yes?" he inquired. "Will you give me this precious little treasure?" Bonnibel looked down at the hand that lay in the colonel's--it was the one which wore the opal ring--that beautiful, changeful gem. Its colors were dim and pale to-day. She shivered slightly, as if with cold. "Colonel Carlyle, I told you when we spoke of this before that I did not love you," she said, faintly. The colonel did not appear to be disheartened by this plaintive plea. "At least you do not hate me, Bonnibel," he said, half questioningly. "Oh, no," she answered quickly; "I like you very much, Colonel Carlyle. You have been so very kind to me, you know--but it is only the liking one has for a friend--it is in no way akin to love." "I will try to be contented with just your friendly liking, my dear one, if you will give yourself to me," he answered, eagerly. "I believe I could give you a daughter's affection, but never that of a wife," she murmured. He did not in the least understand the swift, appealing look of the eyes that were raised a moment to his own. A swift thought had rushed over her and she had given it words: "Oh, that he would adopt me for his daughter and save me from either of those two alternatives that lie before me," she thought, wildly. "He might do so for papa's sake, and I would make him a very devoted daughter!" But the sighing lover did not want a daughter--he was after a wife. "I will take you even on those terms," he replied. "Let me give you the shelter of my name, and we will see if I cannot soon win a warmer place in your heart." She shook her head and a heavy sigh drifted across her lips. "Do not deceive yourself, Colonel Carlyle," she said. "My heart is dead. I shall never love any one." "I will risk all that," he answered. "Only say yes, most peerless of women, and so that I call you mine I will risk all else!" "Do you mean it?" she asked, earnestly. "The hand without the heart--would that content you?" "Yes," he answered, bent on attaining his end, and foolishly believing that he could teach her to love him. "Yes; am I to have it, Bonnibel?"