"Can you guess how I answered him? I thanked him coldly, and said that I was in no mood for marrying, that I was not sure that I should ever marry; I cared too much for my freedom. "'Have you been playing with me all these years, Langley?' he said, sadly, and his face grew so white. 'I can hardly believe that. I will not press or annoy you, dear; I will speak to Garth;' and then he went away. "Oh, if he had only stayed, Queenie, and reasoned with me a little, my better nature must have prevailed, for I loved him so; but his apparent coolness angered me, and then Garth came and scolded me, which made matters worse. He was for carrying things with a high hand; but I only grew obstinate. And so one wretched day Harry and I had bitter words together, and he faced round upon me when I sat pretending to work, and swore that if I would not marry him, Gertrude Leslie should; and with that he turned on his heel and left me. "I felt I had gone too far then, and that he meant what he said. Sooner than lose him altogether, I would have humiliated myself in the dust. I threw down my work, and called out Harry, but he did not hear, and in another moment his horse's hoofs sounded in the lane. "I did all then that I could do. I wrote a penitent little note begging him to forgive me, and come back to me, and all should be as he wished; and I sent a messenger on to Karldale with it, charging him to deliver it into Harry's own hands; but, alas, it was brought back to me unopened. Harry had never been home at all, he had ridden straight off to Blanddale; and the next morning I heard Gertrude Leslie had promised to be his wife. "Oh, Queenie," as the girl leant over her and kissed the white lips that quivered still with the remembrance of that long-past agony, "that moment was a sufficient punishment for all my mad folly; even Garth thought so, for he had no word of reproach for me. "But I opened my lips to no one. None knew what I suffered daring those nights and days. An old aunt of ours had fallen ill in Carlisle, and I went to her, and stayed with her till she died. "When I came back they were married, and by-and-bye Harry and I met. I could see he was greatly changed, and his manner was constrained and nervous; but it was not in his nature to bear malice, and I know he soon forgave me, all the more that he must have seen that he was not the only one to suffer." "Dear Langley," stroking the worn face still more tenderly, "I can hardly bear to hear it; it seems all so dreadful. I cannot understand how women can live through such things." "One gets used to torture," with a strange smile. "Have you not read that martyrs have been known to sleep on the rack? The worst part of life always seems to me that pain so seldom kills. We go on mutilated, shorn of our best blessings, wounded and bleeding, but we never die."