"You must excuse me; I can't suggest or advise anything. I must leave you perfectly free." She rose from her chair, and they, both rose too from the sofa on which he had seated himself at Imogene's side. "I shall have to leave you, I'm afraid; my head aches still a little. Imogene!" She advanced toward the girl, who stood passively letting her come the whole distance. As if sensible of the rebuff expressed in this attitude, she halted a very little. Then she added, "I hope you will be very happy," and suddenly cast her arms round the girl, and stood long pressing her face into her neck. When she released her, Colville trembled lest she should be going to give him her hand in congratulation. But she only bowed slightly to him, with a sidelong, aversive glance, and walked out of the room with a slow, rigid pace, like one that controls a tendency to giddiness. Imogene threw herself on Colville's' breast. It gave him a shock, as if he were letting her do herself some wrong. But she gripped him fast, and began to sob and to cry. "Oh! oh! oh!" "What is it?--what is it, my poor girl?" he murmured. "Are you unhappy? Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!" "No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy--yes, very, very unhappy! Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel so toward any one. I hate her!" "You hate her?" gasped Colville. "Yes, I hate her. And she--she is so good to me! It must be that I've done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, or I couldn't hate her as I know I do." "Oh no," said Colville soothingly; "that's just your fancy. You haven't harmed her, and you don't hate her." "Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her." "But you can't feel so toward her long," he urged, dealing as he might with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so good--" "It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more." "I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're calmer you'll feel differently, of course. I've kept you restless and nervous a long time, poor child; but now our peace begins, and everything will be bright and--" He stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound. She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. "Oh yes." "And, Imogene--perhaps--perhaps--Or, no; never mind, now. I must go away--" She looked at him, frightened but submissive. "But I will be back to-night, or perhaps to-morrow morning. I want to think--to give you time to think. I don't want to be selfish about you--I want to consider you, all the more because you won't consider yourself. Good-bye." He stooped over and kissed her hair. Even in this he felt like a thief; he could not look at the face she lifted to his.