He paused, but Edith did not speak, and sat before him with her long eyelashes cast down and her hands working nervously together. She knew he was sincere, though his wooing was so different from what Abelard’s had been, or what Godfrey’s would be were he in his father’s place. But Godfrey was young, and Abelard had been young, too, and both were different from this cold, proud man of forty, who had unbent his dignity so much, and who seemed so earnest, and even tender as he went on to tell her of all she had to gain if she would go with him to the home he would make more beautiful than it already was, for her sake. It was a very pleasant picture he drew of the future, but it did not move Edith one whit, because she felt certain that this life could not be hers if she told him all, as she must surely tell him, if he persisted in his suit. She admitted to him that he was not disagreeable to her; that she found his society pleasant; that she believed him to be a man of honor, who would try to make her happy; and when he asked why she hesitated, she opened her lips to tell him, but could not speak the words. “I can write them better,” she thought, and when she could command her voice, she said to him: “Give me a few days, a week, in which to think, and then I will write you my decision. I know you honor me, and I thank you for it, and believe you sincere, and for that reason, would not for the world deceive you. I have something to tell you which I can better put on paper. Let me go now, for I feel like suffocating.” She spoke slowly and with difficulty, and her face was so white, that Col. Schuyler felt alarmed lest she should faint, and passing his arm around her, led her to the balcony and brought her a glass of water, and laid his hand softly on her hair, and seemed so kind and thoughtful, that for the first time there awoke in Edith’s heart a throb of something like affection for this man who might make her so happy. “Oh, if I only could forget the past and accept the life offered me,” she thought, as an hour later he put her into the carriage which was to take her to her mother’s, and then pressing her hand deferentially, said to her: “I shall await your answer with a great deal of impatience, and shall not consent to receive an unfavorable one.” He lifted his hat, and the carriage drove away to Caledonia Street, where her mother was expecting her. CHAPTER XV. EDITH’S ANSWER. Gertie Westbrooke had gone to the country with Mrs. Rogers for a few weeks, and Edith occupied her old room, and slept in the child’s bed, and dreamed strange things which haunted her waking hours, and sent her heart back to the little one lost long ago with a yearning such as she had not felt in years. And with this pain, this sense of loss still clinging to her, she sat down one morning and wrote the story of her life, word for word, keeping nothing back and finishing by saying: