This was getting serious. Oliver had no mind to break off his engagement. He reserved the right to snub Ethel without giving offence. If this was an impracticable course to pursue, it was evident that he must abandon it and eat humble pie. Anything rather than part from her just now. He had lost the woman he loved: it would not do to lose also his only chance of winning a competency for himself and immunity from fear of want in the future. "Ethel," he said, softly, "you grieve me very much. I acknowledge my faults of temper--I did not think you mistook then for a want of love." "I do not think I do. It is something more real, more tangible than that." "What is it, dear?" She paused, then looked keenly into his face. "It seems to me, Oliver, that Lesley Brooke has won your heart away from me." He threw back his head and laughed--a singularly jarring and unpleasant laugh, as it seemed to her. "What will you imagine next?" he said. "Imagine? Have I imagined it? Isn't it true that you have been at her house almost every day for the last three or four weeks? Do you come here as often? Is it not Lesley that attracts you?--not me!" "Oh, so you are jealous!" "Yes, I suppose I am. It is only natural, I think." They faced each other for a moment, defiantly, almost fiercely. There was a proud light in Ethel's eyes, a compression of the lips which told that she was not to be trifled with. Oliver stood pale, with frowning brows, and eyes that seemed to question both the reality of her feeling and the answer that he should make to her demand. It was by a great effort of self-control that at last he answered her with calmness-- "I assure you, Ethel, you are utterly mistaken. What have I in common with a girl like Miss Brooke--one of the most curiously ignorant and wrong-headed persons I ever came across? Can you think for a moment that I should compare her with you?--_you_, beautiful and gifted and cultured above most women?" "That is nothing to the point," said Ethel, quickly. "Men don't love women because of their gifts and their culture." "No," he rejoined, "but because of some subtle likeness or attractiveness which draws one to the other. I find it in you, without knowing why. You--I hoped--found it----" His voice became troubled; he dropped his eyes. Ethel trembled--she loved him, poor girl, and she thought that he suffered as she had suffered, and she was sorry for him. But her outraged pride would not let her make any advance as yet. "I may be a fatuous fool," said Oliver, after an agitated pause, "but I thought you loved me." "I do love you," cried Ethel, passionately. "And yet you suspect me of being false to you." "Not suspect--not suspect"--she said, incoherently, and then, was suddenly folded in Oliver's arms, and felt that the time for reproach or inquiry had gone by.