She shook her head. "It is not a whim. I see clearly now. We were very young when we became engaged, and I didn't understand how serious the step really was. In the last week at sea I have had time to think it all over, and now I know it best that after this we be just friends--nothing more. You will forget me. You will find another woman worthier of you." Little as I knew of women, I realized that while these last two statements might be perfectly true, to accept them as true would sever the last strand of the cord which bound us. At that moment I did not want to lose Gladys Todd. She was very lovely as she sat there, with her eyes downcast, caressing her dog. She was the promised reward of my years of work. For her I had labored, scrimped and saved, cramped myself in a narrow room in a boarding-house, and almost shunned my fellows, to realize our dream of the little house on the bit of green. At that moment the dream was very dear to me and I could not see it wrecked for some whim. I grew belligerent. I reached out my hand again, as though by mere physical power I would prove my unchanging mind, but again Blossom was on guard. "I shall not forget you," I said, and I folded my arms with grim determination and fixed my eyes on her face to break her by mere will-power. And then to what untruth did pride drive me? "I have not changed. I shall never change, Gladys. I love you now more than ever, and I will not give you up." The light in her eyes was not quite so cold, nor was her voice so even and at her command. "I am sorry, David, but you must." "But I won't," I returned. "Oh, why do you drive me to it?" she cried with a gesture of despair. "Can't you see, David, that there is some one else to be considered?" "Some one else?" I exclaimed. "I didn't think you would be so ungenerous--so selfish," she said in a low voice, while her hands played rapidly over Blossom's head. "I have tried to be honorable and fair to you. But he was so kind, so good--he is so lonely----" "He--who is he?" I demanded, in my anger abandoning all effort to hold to the honorable course to which I had set myself. "You should not ask me," she replied, her voice growing hard. "After I had come to know him, to know how fine he was, I really tried to keep on caring for you, David, but I simply couldn't. I am fond of you, of course, but not in the way I thought. You are too young. It is a mistake for a woman to marry a man of her own age. She should marry one whom she can look up to, honor and respect. Love in a cottage is well enough to read of, I suppose, but enduring love must be built on something more."