Throwing herself in the chair from which she had risen, and burying her face in her hands, she gave way to her sorrow, feeling all the while that she dare not reason with herself, for however much she suffered she determined that she would not break her faith. She would bring herself to love De Laprade; love him as she honoured and admired him, the loyal and courteous gentleman, who treated her rather as a goddess than as a woman. She did not hear the footsteps coming from the open window; she was thinking at the moment of how she could meet her betrothed with an air of gaiety. Then a hand was laid lightly on her shoulder and she looked up. De Laprade was standing over her, with a pleasant smile playing about his lips. His face was pale and his voice trembled a little when he spoke, but only for a moment; otherwise his manner was free and pleasant, with something of his old gaiety in it. “I am a dull fellow, Cousin Dorothy,” he said, “but a dull fellow sometimes awakens, and I have aroused myself. I have been sleeping for weeks, I think, with dreams too, but poof! they are gone. You have been weeping--that is wrong. The eyes of beauty should ever be undimmed.” She did not answer him, and he sat down on the chair beside her, taking Orme´s glove from her lap where it lay, and examining the embroidery critically. “Monsieur Orme is a pretty fellow, and I have much regard for him. I am going to make you very happy, my cousin.” “I am not----” “Nay, I know what you would say. But I have a long story to tell, so long that I know not how to begin, nor how to make an end. It will be easier by what you call a parable.” Dorothy looked at her lover curiously. For some time his old manner of jesting with something of gay cynicism about it had disappeared, but all at once it had returned with something else she did not recognize. He could not have learned her secret, for she had guarded that too carefully, but her woman´s instinct warned her that perhaps after all he had guessed the truth.