“Yes, yes, I do,” she answered quickly, alarmed by the earnestness of his passion, yet remembering vaguely that she had read of such things in books. “You will come to-morrow, darling--you will have trust in me?” “You are mad, Alec. You don’t know what you are saying. It would be absurd.” “It’s because you don’t understand how I love you, that you say that,” he broke out fiercely. “You can’t understand--you can’t understand. “Yes, I can,” she protested, instinctively eager to vie with his display of emotion. “Then say you will come--promise it, promise it,” he cried; and his features were all distorted by suspense. But at this climax of his insistance, she lost consciousness of her own attitude. She seemed suddenly to see all that clumsiness which had made her refuse him before. “It’s altogether ridiculous,” she answered shortly. He recoiled from her: he seemed to stiffen a little all over; and she felt rising impatience at his grotesque denseness in persisting. “You say it’s altogether ridiculous?” he repeated after her slowly. “Yes, of course it’s ridiculous,” she repeated with uneasy emphasis. “I’m very sorry you should mind--feel it so--but it isn’t my fault.” “Why did you say then that before God you loved me, when you came that day?” he burst out with concentrated bitterness. “Because I thought you were dying.” The bald statement of the truth sprang to her lips--a spontaneous, irresistible betrayal. “I see--I see,” he muttered. His hands clenched till the knuckles showed white. “I’m very sorry,” she added lamely. Her tone was gentler, for his dumb suffering moved her sensibilities. In her agitation, the crudity of her avowal had slipped her notice. “That’s no use,” he answered wearily. “Alec, don’t be angry with me. Can’t we be friends? Don’t you see yourself now that it was mad, absurd?” she argued, eager to reinstate herself in his eyes. Then, as he made no answer, “Let us be friends, Alec, and you will go back to Scarsdale, when you are well and strong. You will give up nothing for my sake. I should not wish that, you know, Alec.” “Yes,” he assented mechanically, “I shall go back.” “I shall always think of this morning,” she continued, growing sentimentally remorseful as the sensation of rising relief pervaded her. “And you will soon forget all about it,” she added, with a cheeriness of tone that rang false; and paused, awaiting his answer. “And I shall forget all about it,” he repeated after her. To mask her disappointment, she assumed a silly, nervous gaiety. “And I shall keep it quite secret that you were so naughty as to ask me to run away with you. I sha’n’t even tell Jim.” He nodded stupidly. With a thin, empty smile on her face, she was debating how best to part with him, when, of a sudden, he rose, and, without a word, walked out of the room. He strode away across the lawn, and, as she watched his retreating figure, she felt for him a shallow compassion, not unmingled with contempt. George Meredith