The Colonel was not up to the mark in this emergency. He did not give the little compliment which is expected after such a speech. He sat dumb, a dull, middle-aged blush rising over his face. He had no longer anything to say; instead of the serious, even impassioned remonstrance which he was about to address to her, he could only murmur a faint assent, a question without meaning. And in place of the generous, imprudent creature, following her own hasty impulses, disregarding the opinion of the world, whom he had expected to find, here was female dignity in person, regulated by all the nicest laws of propriety. He was struck dumb--the ground was cut from beneath his feet. “This is only an interruption on my part. You were going to say something to me? And something serious? I prize so much everything you say that I must not lose it. Pray say it now, dear Colonel Kingsward. Have I done something you don’t like? I am ready to accept even blame--though you know what women are in that way, always standing out that they are right--from you.” Colonel Kingsward looked at her, helpless, still without a word to say. There was surely a laughing demon in her eyes which saw through and through him and knew the trouble in his mind; but her face was serious, appealing, a little raised towards him, waiting for his words as if her fate hung upon them. The colour rose over his middle-aged countenance to the very hair which was beginning to show traces of white over his high forehead. “Blame!” he stammered, scarcely knowing what he said, “I hope you don’t think me quite a fool.” “What,” she cried, picking him up as it were on the end of her lance, holding him out to the scorn--if not of the world, yet of himself. “Do you think so little of a woman, Colonel Kingsward, that you would not take the trouble to find fault with her? Ah! Don’t be so hard! You would not be a fool if you did that--you should find that I would take it with gratitude, accept it, be guided by it. Believe me, I am worthy, if you think me in the wrong, to be told so--I am, indeed I am!” Were these tears in her fine eyes? She made them look as if they were, and filled him with a compunction and a shame of his own superficial judgment impossible to put into words. “I--think you wrong!” he said, stammering and faltering. “I would as soon think that--heaven was wrong. I--blame you! Dear Miss Laura, how, how can you imagine such a thing? I should be a miserable idiot indeed if----” “Come,” she said, “I begin to think you didn’t mean--now that you have called me by my name.” “I beg you a thousand pardons. I--I--It was a slip of the tongue. It was--from the signature to your letters--which is somehow so like you----”