“You see how it was, Mrs. Fleming, don’t you? I was weak, but not wicked. As for flirting, I never thought of it. I execrate it as much as you do, and I am very sorry I ever listened to your cousin. But you must see that he was to blame. Why did he try to prejudice me against the man I loved? He might have guessed I would find it out some time.” Mrs. Fleming found her voice, and said huskily, trying to remedy Royall’s defeat and her own: “You misjudge my cousin. He thought I was engaged to Mr. Bain because he knew he loved me, and I was very friendly with him. But when he proposed I refused him, because I couldn’t love a stranger I knew nothing about. It was simply through spite he turned to you, but he is gone now in anger, so my advice to you is to keep your promise to Royall, and let him go.” “Could you advise me to act so basely? No, I can never marry Mr. Sherwood now. When he comes I want you to tell him all that happened here to-day, and that I set him free.” “Indeed, I shall tell him nothing of the kind! I would not give him such pain as to tell him the girl he loves is a cruel little coquette. Think better of it, Daisie Bell, and marry Royall, who is so rich, and can give you a palace for a home and diamonds a princess might envy. He is of a sweet, sunny disposition, too, and will make you far happier than Dallas Bain, who is sullen, violent, and jealous. Besides, he is gone away, and you will never see him again, so I will keep your secret of this morning, and Royall need never know it,” coaxed the little widow. CHAPTER VI. “I CANNOT GIVE UP MY LOVE.” But all her pleadings could not move Daisie from her resolve to tell Royall everything and break her engagement. She persisted in it, crying pleadingly: “Oh, if you really want to do me a kindness, you must help me with Dallas. He is at your house, and you will see him when you go back. Won’t you tell him how it all came about, that I love only him, and ask him to forgive me and come back to me again?” She did not know that she was pleading to a woman who loved Dallas so madly that she would rather have seen him dead than married to another; but somehow she could not believe the story that he had proposed to Lutie Fleming and been refused. Daisie believed that any woman would be glad to accept such a splendid lover. She told herself that the artful young widow was just trying to shield her cousin and to further his cause. Mrs. Fleming said decisively: “I decline to speak to Dallas Bain on this subject, or to work against my cousin’s interests in any way, and I believe that when you come to your sober senses, girl, you will be glad enough to keep this affair a secret and marry Royall, after all.” So saying, she swept from the room and rustled out to her carriage, nodding a careless greeting to Annette Janowitz, who was just entering the gate, and who went in the open doors with a friendly familiarity, and found Daisie sobbing with hysterical grief on her sofa.