"Why?" she asked, looking at me in mingled amazement and alarm. "We are friends, it is true; but your friendship gives you no right to endeavour to learn the secret of my heart," and she gently withdrew her hand from my grasp. I was silent, unable to reply to such an argument. "And you love this man?" I said, in a rather hard voice. But she merely shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced laugh answered-- "Oh, let's talk of something else. We are out to enjoy ourselves to-day, not to discuss each other's love affairs." We had approached the Diana fountain, and she stood pensively beside it for a moment watching the shoal of lazy carp, some of which have lived in that pond for over a century. "I do not wish to discuss my own affairs of the heart, Muriel," I burst forth passionately, as I stood beside her. "Yet, as one who holds you in esteem, who has ever striven for your welfare, I feel somehow that I ought to be still your confidant." "You only wish to wring my secret from me because it amuses you," she protested, her eyes flashing resentfully. "You know that's the truth. When you have nothing better to do you bring me out, just because I'm company. If you had held me in esteem, as you declare you do, you would have at least wished me farewell before you went abroad for the winter." This neglect had annoyed her, and in sudden pique she was reproaching me in a manner quite unusual to her. I had never before seen her assume so resentful an air. "No," I responded, pained that she should thus charge me with amusing myself at leisure with her society, although when I reflected I was compelled to admit within myself that her words were the absolute truth. For several years I had merely treated her as a friend to be sought when I had no other person to dine with or accompany me out. Yes, of late, I had neglected Muriel sadly. "I don't think you are quite fair," I said. "That I hold you in esteem you must have seen long, long ago, and the reason why I did not wish you farewell was because--well, because I was just then very much upset." "You had met a woman whom you believed you loved," she said harshly. "It is useless to try and conceal the truth from me." "I have not attempted to conceal anything," I responded, nevertheless starting at her mention of that woman who had been enveloped in such mystery, and who, after a few days' madness, had now so completely gone out of my life. How could she have known? In answer she looked me straight in the face with her dark, fathomless eyes.