“That is better,” responded Dorothy. “I fully believe you when you say you did not mean to do an unmanly thing. For the rest, I cannot see that your situation is at all a perplexing one, except as you needlessly make it so.” “I confess I do not understand you,” replied Kilgariff, “and yet I cannot explain my difficulty in understanding without in effect repeating my error and emphasising it. I should be rejoiced to know that there is no foundation for the fears that I have been entertaining without any right to entertain them.” “Are you sure of that? Would you really rejoice to know that Evelyn Byrd’s sentiments toward you are only those of friendship?” “I believe so. It would involve a good deal of distress to me, of course; but I count the other consideration as supreme. It would enable me to feel that I am privileged to go away from here carrying my burdens on my own back and allowing no straw’s weight to fall upon the shoulders of the only woman in the world that I ever loved or ever shall.” Dorothy made no reply in words. Instead, she turned her great, brown eyes full upon him and looked at him for the space of twenty seconds, in a way that brought a flush to his face. Then, still making no direct reply to anything he had uttered, she said:— “I am very greatly displeased with you, Owen Kilgariff. And I am very greatly disappointed.” She rose to withdraw, but Kilgariff stopped her, and with eager earnestness demanded:— “Why, Dorothy?” “I do not wish to explain.” “But you must. It is my right to demand that. If you go away after saying that, and without explaining what you mean, you will do me a grievous injustice—and you hate injustice.” “Perhaps I ought not to have said precisely what I did. I ought to have remembered that you are morbid; that by your brooding you have wrought yourself into a diseased condition of mind. When you recover, you will understand clearly enough that it is every honest man’s privilege to woo where his heart directs. He must woo honestly, of course, but the honest wooing of a man is no wrong and no insult to a maid. Only a morbid self-consciousness like your own could imagine otherwise.” “Then you would wish me to—” “I wish nothing in the case. I have said all that I shall say. If I have spoken severely, it has been because I have little patience with your diseased imaginings. I don’t think I like you very well just now.” She left him to think. XXIV EVELYN’S BOOK LATE that day, came a letter and a parcel from Evelyn to Dorothy. In the letter the girl wrote:— I am going to stay here at Branton for two or three more days. That is because I do not want to be with you while you are reading the book I have written for you. Two or three days will be enough for the reading. Then I am going back to Wyanoke. I have been over to the hospital camp every morning, so I don’t need to tell you that I am perfectly well.