"No," she broke in, "I hope you won't even do that. She must know how we feel, and if she had any interest in us she would come over here. No, I won't say that. I don't know what she may have to contend with. But her brother could come if he wanted to, but it makes no difference, I'm sure." "Suppose I meet Millie in the road; shall I speak to her?" "Surely, but don't ask her why she hasn't been to see us. What did Chyd say?" "Not much of anything--said that so long as people were romantic they must expect trouble." She frowned and thus replied: "A good authority on the evils of romance." "Why not an expert on the thrills of romance?" I asked. "Hasn't he played up and down the brook?" "So have the ducks," she answered, with a return of her smile. "But let us not talk about him--I would rather not think about him." I could not play the part of a hero; I was not of the stock that had stood at the stake glorifying the deed with a hymn. I had wanted to drop the subject, not because it was painful to her, but because it pressed a spike into my own flesh; but her wish to dismiss him from her mind urged me to keep him there, to torture her with him. Brute? Surely; I have never denied it, but I loved her, and in love there is no generosity. The lover who seeks to be liberal is a hypocrite, a sneak-thief robbing his own heart. "But how can you put him out of your mind if he is worthy of your love?" I asked. "You did not place him therein, nor can you take him away." She looked at me a long time, looked at me and read me; she did not frown, she smiled not, but searched me with her eyes until I felt that my motive lay bare under her gaze. "You would help Alf in his trouble," she said, "but you would throw a trouble at me." How sadly she spoke those words, and my heart fell under them and lay at her feet in sorrow and in humiliation. I strove to beg for pardon, but I stammered and my words were almost meaningless. "Oh, you have my forgiveness, if that is what you are trying to ask for. Now, please don't say anything more. I know you didn't mean to make me feel bad." "I think I'd better cut my throat!" I replied, taking up a table knife. She laughed at me. "How can a big man be so silly? Cut your throat, indeed. Why, what have you done to deserve it?" "What have I done?" I cried, leaning over the table and making a fumble, as if I would take her hand--"what have I done? I have wantonly wounded the divinest creature----" She was on her feet in an instant; she put her hands to her ears and shook her head at me. "No, you must not say that. Don't you see I can't hear what you say? So, what is the use of saying anything? Think you are a brute? No, I don't; but you must not talk like that. I can't hear you--I won't hear you. Oh, don't worry about Mr. Lundsford. He will kneel at my feet." CHAPTER XIII.