"Now you are angry with me," said Garda, not turning her head, but putting up one hand caressingly on Margaret's arm. "Why should you be angry? What have I done but change? Can I help changing? _I_ don't do it; it does itself; it _happens_. You needn't try to tell me that one love, if a true one, lasts forever, because it's nothing of the kind. Look at second marriages. I really cared for Evert. And now I don't care for him. But I don't see that I am to blame for either the one or the other; people don't care for people because they _try_ to, but because it comes in spite of them; and it's the same way when it stops. I acknowledge, Margaret, that _you_ are one of the kind to care once and forever. But there are very few women like you, I am sure." She turned as she said this, in order to look up at her friend; then she sprang from her place on the rug and stood beside her, her attitude was almost a protecting one. "Oh," she said, "how I hate the people who make you so unhappy!" "No one does that," said Margaret. She rose. "Are you going?" "Yes; I am tired." "I suppose I oughtn't to keep you," said Garda, regretfully, "Well,--it's understood, then, that I tell Evert to-morrow." Margaret, who was going towards the door, stopped. She waited a moment, then she said--"Even if you break the engagement, Garda, it isn't necessary to say anything about Lucian, is it?--this feeling that you think you have for him; I wish you would promise me not to speak of Lucian at all." "Think I have!" said Garda. "_Know_ is the word. But I'm afraid I can't promise you that, because, don't you see" (here she came to her friend, who was standing with one hand on the door)--"don't you see that I shall _have_ to speak of Lucian?--I shall have to say how much I like him. Because, after what I let Evert think that night on the barrens, nothing less will convince _him_ that I don't care for _him_ any more, that I've got over it. For he believed me then--as well he might! and he has never stopped believing. And he never will stop--he wouldn't know how--until I tell him in so many words that I adore somebody else; perhaps he will stop then; he knew what it was when I adored _him_." Margaret looked at her without speaking. "Dear me! Margaret, don't _hate_ me," said Garda, abandoning her presentation of the case and clinging in distress to her friend. "Promise me at least not to tell Evert anything about that last afternoon before Lucian left--your plan for meeting him at the pool, your going on towards the house and coming upon me, our seeing Dr. Kirby, and your fear--in short, all that happened. Promise me faithfully." "I suppose I can promise that, if you care about it. But you mustn't hate me, Margaret." "What makes you think I hate you?" asked Margaret, forcing a smile. "A look 'way back in your eyes," Garda answered, the tears shining in her own.