"Burt," she cried, as he, in a moment or two, reined up near her, "you will break your neck!" "It wouldn't matter much," he said, grimly. "I fear a worse fate than that." "What do you mean?" she asked, in alarm. "What has happened?" He threw the bridle over a stake in the fence, and the horse was glad to rest, with drooping head. Then he came and stood beside her, his face flushed, and his mouth twitching with excitement and strong feeling. For a moment he could not speak. "Burt," she said, "what is the matter? What do you fear?" "I fear your scorn, Amy," he began, impetuously; "I fear I shall lose your respect forever. But I can't go on any longer detesting myself and feeling that you and Miss Hargrove despise me. I may seem to you and her a fickle fool, a man of straw, but you shall both know the truth. I shan't go away a coward. I can at least be honest, and then you may think what you please of my weakness and vacillation. You cannot think worse things than I think myself, but you must not imagine that I am a cold-blooded, deliberate trifler, for that has never been true. I know you don't care for me, and never did." "Indeed, Burt, you are mistaken. I do care for you immensely," said Amy, eagerly clasping his arm with both her hands. "Amy, Amy," said Burt, in a low, desperate tone, "think how few short months have passed since I told you I loved you, and protested I would wait till I was gray. You have seen me giving my thoughts to another, and in your mind you expect to see me carried away by a half-dozen more. You are mistaken, but it will take a long time to prove it." "No, Burt, I understand you better than you think. Gertrude has inspired in you a very different feeling from the one you had for me. I think you are loving now with a man's love, and won't get over it very soon, if you ever do. You have seen, you must have felt, that my love for you was only that of a sister, and of course you soon began to feel toward me in the same way. I don't believe I would have married you had you waited an age. Don't fret, I'm not going to break my heart about you." "I should think not, nor will any one else. Oh, Amy, I so despised myself that I have been half-desperate." "Despised yourself because you love a girl like Gertrude Hargrove! I never knew a man to do a more natural and sensible thing, whether she gave you encouragement or not. If I were a man I would make love to her, rest assured, and she would have to refuse me more than once to be rid of me." Burt took a long breath of immense relief. "You are heavenly kind," he said. "Are you sure you won't despise me? I could not bear that. It seems to me that I have done such an awfully mean thing in making love to you in my own home, and then in changing."