"Come, come, I cannot have you vexed with me like this," he said, stopping her and taking her hand. "You know I must go directly, and I have wasted ever so much time already. Won't you promise me to think better of it, and not be hurt with me any longer?" "I don't know," looking down, for his voice was rather too persuasive in its eloquence. "You know very well, do you not, that I would not say or do anything to hurt you really? but my position is a difficult one. I don't think I ever before realized how difficult it was. Things seem all in a tangle somehow, and it is out of my power to right them." "Why?" she asked timidly, and her brief indignation died away. Something in his manner reassured her; he had not really turned against her. "That is just what I cannot tell you. My affairs have all got crooked, and there is no shaping them. I suppose time and patience are needed, but there's terribly hard work before me. I don't want to lose heart over it. I could not bear you just now to say what you did." "About not being friends?" "Yes; whatever happens we must be friends, dear friends, always. I think you might promise me as much as that." "I do promise you that," she said, looking straight at him; and the expression in her eyes haunted him long afterwards, it was so frank and sorrowful. "Then I am content," he replied, and then almost abruptly he lifted his hat and moved away. Had she understood him? Could she follow the meaning of those vague words? Had she comprehended that it was only friendship for which he asked, and with which he professed himself content? He could not make up his mind how far she had understood him. He would have been almost aghast at his success if he could have read Queenie's thoughts as she went down the lane again, and strove with a sick heart to piece together the fragments of talk in her memory. How gentle he had been with her, and yet his very gentleness had been inexorable. Alas! she saw but too plainly that her riches and that miserable debt were dividing them. The pride and independence of the man rose between them like a wall of rock. "He loves me, but he never means to tell me so," she said to herself in unutterable bitterness. "He will break both our hearts first." As she entered the drawing-room at Church-Stile House Langley put down her work with a pleasant smile and word of greeting. "Have you come to be congratulated, my dear?" she said, taking the girl in her arms, and kissing her with more than usual affection. Queenie suffered the caress passively, and then sat down by the fire, shivering slightly as though she were cold. "You have given us all a great surprise." "Have I?" "I was so startled when Garth told me last night that I could hardly take in the sense of his words. To think that it is you, and not Mr. Logan, who has been our secret benefactor!" "Don't, Langley; I feel as though I could not talk about it."