"Oh! yes!" she broke in, "unfair, of course, to you! but nothing to me--nothing to me that you stole my love--robbed me of it like a common thief--pretended to love me, promised to marry me, and now--now--Oh! unfair! yes, always for the man, never for the girl--she doesn't count! She doesn't matter at all. Break her heart and fling it away and nobody minds--it's as good as a play!" She burst into tears, and stood with her head in her hands, sobbing as though her heart would break. It was a most distressing scene! "Really, really, Dahlia," said Robin, feeling extremely uncomfortable (it was such a very good thing, he thought, that none of his friends could see him), "it's no use your taking it like this. I had better go--we can't do any good by talking about it now. To-morrow, when we can look at it calmly, it will seem different." He moved to the door, but she made another attempt and put her hand timidly on his arm to stop him. "No, no, Robin, I didn't mean what I said--not like that. I didn't know what I was saying. Oh, I love you, dear, I love you! I can't let you go like that. You don't know what it means to me. You are taking everything from me--when you rob a girl of her love, of her heart, you leave her nothing. If you go now, I don't care what happens to me--death--or worse, That's how you make a bad woman, Robin. Taking her love from her and then letting her go. You are taking her soul!" But he placed her gently aside. "Nonsense, Dahlia," he said. "You are excited to-night. You exaggerate. You will meet a man much worthier than myself, and then you will see that I was right." He opened the door and was gone. She sat down at the table. She heard him open and shut the hall door, and then his steps echoed down the street, and at last there was silence. She sat at the table with her head bent, her eyes gazing at the oranges and the bananas. The house was perfectly silent, and her very heart seemed to have ceased to beat. Of course she did not realise it; it seemed to her still as though he would come back in a moment and put his arms round her and tell her that it was all a game--just to see if she had really cared. But the silence of the street and the house was terrible. It choked her, and she pulled at her frock to loosen the tightness about her throat. It was cruel of him to have gone away like that--but of course he would come back. Only why was that cold misery at her heart? Why did she feel as if some one had placed a hand on her and drawn all her life away, and left her with no emotion or feeling--only a dull, blank, despair, like a cold fog through which no sun shone?