Mr. Brumley did not stir. He remained regarding her with a mournful expression. “I was sure of it then,” she said, “I knew nothing about the will. I want you to understand that—clearly.” She said no more. The still pause lengthened. She forced herself to meet his eyes. “I thought,” he said after a silent scrutiny, and left her to imagine what he had thought.... “But,” he urged to her protracted silence, “you _care_?” She turned her face away. She looked at the hand lying idle upon her crape-covered knee. “You are my dearest friend,” she said very softly. “You are almost my only friend. But——. I can never go into marriage any more....” “My dear,” he said, “the marriage you have known——.” “No,” she said. “No sort of marriage.” Mr. Brumley heaved a profound sigh. “Before I had been a widow twenty-four hours, I began to realize that I was an escaped woman. It wasn’t the particular marriage.... It was any marriage.... All we women are tied. Most of us are willing to be tied perhaps, but only as people are willing to be tied to life-belts in a wreck—from fear from drowning. And now, I am just one of the free women, like the women who can earn large incomes, or the women who happen to own property. I’ve paid my penalties and my service is over.... I knew, of course, that you would ask me this. It isn’t that I don’t care for you, that I don’t love your company and your help—and the love and the kindness....” “Only,” he said, “although it is the one thing I desire, although it is the one return you can make me——. But whatever I have done—I have done willingly....” “My dear!” cried Mr. Brumley, breaking out abruptly at a fresh point, “I want you to marry me. I want you to be mine, to be my dear close companion, the care of my life, the beauty in my life.... I can’t frame sentences, my dear. You know, you know.... Since first I saw you, talked to you in this very garden....” “I don’t forget a thing,” she answered. “It has been my life as well as yours. Only——” The grip of her hand tightened on the back of their seat. She seemed to be examining her thumb intently. Her voice sank to a whisper. “I won’t marry you,” she said. §6 Mr. Brumley leant back, then he bent forward in a desperate attitude with his hands and arms thrust between his knees, then suddenly he recovered, stood up and then knelt with one knee upon the seat. “What are you going to do with me then?” he asked. “I want you to go on being my friend.” “I can’t.” “You can’t?” “No,—I’ve _hoped_.” And then with something almost querulous in his voice, he repeated, “My dear, I want you to marry me and I want now nothing else in the world.” She was silent for a moment. “Mr. Brumley,” she said, looking up at him, “have you no thought for our Hostels?” Mr. Brumley as I have said hated dilemmas. He started to his feet, a man stung. He stood in front of her and quivered extended hands at her. “What do such things matter,” he cried, “when a man is in love?”