A strange love-making, indeed! The girl gave a little sob. Yes, actually, a little sob. But she let him hold her hand, just as she had let him hold it, that day before. She had put her budding love aside, and outlived it bravely; but there was a pang in this, nevertheless, and she could not help but feel it. It would be over in a moment, but it stung sharply, for the instant. “Yes, Hector, I see,” she answered, almost directly. “You are asking me if I will marry you.” “Yes, my dear.” And he kissed her hand again. Then there was a silence, for a little while; and he waited, wondering and feeling, God knows what strange hope, or fear, at heart. At length, however, another fair, small hand was laid softly on his, causing him to glance up, questioningly. “Is that the answer?” he ventured, with a new throb of the heart. But she shook her head, smiling a sweet, half-sad smile. “It is not _that_ answer,” she said, “but it is an answer in its way. It means that I am going to speak to you, from my heart.” “I think you always do that,” he said, unsteadily. “Yes, always; but now, more than ever, I must be very true to you, indeed, to-day, because--because you have made a mistake, Hector.” “A mistake! Then it is not the first.” But what a craven he felt at soul! How hard it was to meet her clear, bright eyes! “You have made a mistake,” she went on. “Oh, if I was not true to you, and to myself as well, your whole life might be a mistake from this hour, and everything might go wrong. You fancy that, because you can admire and trust me, that you could learn to love me, too, in that best way, as you do not now, when I was your wife. But you could not, however hard you might try, and however hard I might try, too; you could not. You could only teach yourself a poor imitation of that best way, and you would be unsatisfied at heart, Hector; and so should I. Husbands and wives ought to have that best kind of love, and nothing else, because nothing else will fill its place--the place in their hearts that God made to be filled by it. Because you are honest and true to me,” with a warm grasp of the small hand, though warm tears were in her eyes, “you do not say that you have that kind of love to offer me, and I know you have not. I think that, perhaps, you could not give it to me, even if--don’t be angry, Hector, because I could not help seeing it--you had not given it, almost in spite of yourself, to some one else----” “To some one else!” he exclaimed. “Yes,” she said, sorrowfully, “to Lisbeth.” He drew his hands away, and covered his face with them, with something like a groan of despair. “I am answered,” he said. “Don’t say anything more, Georgie. That is enough.”