She could not spesik. She only looked at him with frightened eyes, as if his presence were that of some disembodied spirit. "Are you not glad that I have come?" he asked her. "Have I made a mistake in coming?" He was gazing into her eyes, seeking to read the meaning of their new, and strange expression. "Am I glad?" she faltered. "I don' know. W'at has that to do? You've come to see the work, of co'se. It's--it's only half done, Mr. Offdean. They would n' listen to me or to papa, an' you did n' seem to care." "I have n't come to see the work," he said, with a smile of love and confidence. "I am here only to see you,--to say how much I want you, and need you--to tell you how I love you." She rose, half choking with words she could not utter. But he seized her hands and held her there. "The plantation is mine, Euphrasie,--or it will be when you say that you will be my wife," he went on excitedly. "I know that you love me"-- "I do not!" she exclaimed wildly. "W'at do you mean? How do you dare," she gasped, "to say such things w'en you know that in two days I shall be married to Placide" The last was said in a whisper; it was like a wail. "Married to Placide!" he echoed, as if striving to understand,--to grasp some part of his own stupendous folly and blindness. "I knew nothing of it," he said hoarsely. "Married to Placide! I would never have spoken to you as I did, if I had known. You believe me, I hope? Please say that you forgive me." He spoke with long silences between his utterances. "Oh, there is n' anything to fo'give. You've only made a mistake. Please leave me, Mr. Offdean. Papa is out in the fiel', I think, if you would like to speak with him. Placide is somew'ere on the place." "I shall mount my horse and go see what work has been done," said Offdean, rising. An unusual pallor had overspread his face, and his mouth was drawn with suppressed pain. "I must turn my fool's errand to some practical good," he added, with a sad attempt at playfulness; and with no further word he walked quickly away. She listened to his going. Then all the wretchedness of the past months, together with the sharp distress of the moment, voiced itself in a sob: "O God--O my God, he'p me!" But she could not stay out there in the broad day for any chance comer to look upon her uncovered sorrow.