The hesitating step at his side paused, and though no great change came into her face, she seemed to have received a shock. "I can understand," said she, "that you hurt her." "Is she so wedded to the past, then?" he cried. "Was there some one, is there some one whom she--she----" He could not finish, but the candid-eyed girl beside him did not profess to misunderstand him. A pitiful smile crossed her lips, and she looked for a minute whiter than her sister had done, but she answered firmly: "You could easily overcome any mere memory, but the decision she has made never to leave the house, I fear you cannot overcome." "Does it spring--forgive me if I go beyond the bounds of discretion, but this mystery is driving me mad--does it spring from that past attachment you have almost acknowledged?" She drooped her head and his heart misgave him. Why should he hurt both these women when his whole feeling towards them was one of kindness and love? "Pardon me," he pleaded. "I withdraw the question; I had no right to put it." "Thank you," said she, and looked away from him towards the distant prospect of hill and valley lying before them. He stood revolving the matter in his disturbed mind. "I should have been glad to have been the means of happiness to your sister and yourself. Such seclusion as you have imposed upon yourselves seems unnecessary, but if it must be, and this garden wall is destined to be the boundary of your world, it would have been a great pleasure to me to have brought into it some freshness from the life which lies beyond it. But it is destined not to be." The sad expression in her face changed into one of wistfulness. "Then you are not coming any more?" said she. He caught his breath. There was disappointment in her tones and this could mean nothing but regret, and regret meant the loss of something which might have been hope. She felt, then, that he might have won her sister if he had been more patient. "Do you think it will do for me to come here after your sister has told me that it was useless for me to aspire to her hand?" She gave him for the first time a glance that had the element of mirthfulness in it. "Come as my friend," she suggested; then in a more serious mood added: "It is her only chance of happiness, but I do not know that I would be doing right in influencing you to pursue a suit which may not be for yours. _You_ know, or will know after reflection (and I advise you to reflect well), whether an alliance with women situated as we are would be conducive to your welfare. If you decide yes, think that a woman taken by surprise, as my sister undoubtedly was, may not in the first hurried moment of decision know her own mind, but also remember that no woman who has taken such a decision as she has, is cast in the common mould, and that you may but add to your regrets by a persistency she may never fully reward."