“It is--because you married me--in--that way--without knowing---- Oh, can’t you see how terrible----” Oh, the folly and blindness of love! Gordon got up from his knees as if she had stung him. “You need not feel bad about that any more,” he said in a hurt tone. “Did I not tell you I would set you free at once? Surely no one in his senses could call you bound after such circumstances.” She was very still for an instant, as if he had struck her, and then she raised her golden head, and a pair of sweet eyes suddenly grown haughty. “You mean that _I_ will set _you_ free!” she said coldly. “I could not think of letting you be bound by a misunderstanding when you were under great stress of mind. You were in no wise to blame. _I_ will set _you_ free.” “As you please,” he retorted bitterly, turning toward the window again. “It all amounts to the same thing. There is nothing for you to feel bad about.” “Yes, there is,” she answered, with a quick rush of feeling that broke through her assumed haughtiness. “I shall always feel that I have broken in upon your life. You have had a most trying experience with me, and you never can quite forget it. Things won’t be the same----” She paused and the quiet tears chased each other eloquently down her face. “No,” said Gordon still bitterly; “things will never be the same for me. I shall always see you sitting there in my chair. I shall always be missing you from it! But I am glad--glad. I would never have known what I missed if it had not been for this.” He spoke almost savagely. He did not look around, but she was staring at him in astonishment, her blue eyes suddenly alight. “What do you mean?” she asked softly. He wheeled round upon her. “I mean that I shall never forget you; that I do not want to forget you. I should rather have had these two days of your sweet company, than all my lifetime in any other companionship.” “Oh!” she breathed. “Then, why--why did you say what you did about being free?” “I didn’t say anything about being free that I remember. It was you that said that.” “I said I would set you free. I could not, of course, hold you to a bond you did not want----” “But I did not say I did not want it. I said I would not hold you if _you_ did not want to stay.” “Do you mean that if you had known me a little--that is, just as much as you know me now--and had come in there and found out your mistake before it was too late, that you would have _wanted_ to go on with it?” She waited for his answer breathlessly. “If you had known me just as much as you do now, and had looked up and seen that it was I and not George Hayne you were marrying, would _you_ have wanted to go on and be married?” Her cheeks grew rosy and her eyes confused. “I asked you first,” she said, with just a flicker of a smile. He caught the shimmer of light in her eyes, and came toward her eagerly, his own face all aglow now with a dawning understanding.