“You don’t say a word, Mr. de Vere. I suppose you are vexed still. Perhaps you did not want me here, breaking up the peace and quiet you had with your mother before I came. This is what I wanted to say. It isn’t likely I will ever marry anybody, so you can’t get rid of me that way. But, please, can’t I go away and support myself? I could teach music. I have a talent for that, and for millinery, too. I--would--rather go, please, because I’m afraid I’m in your way here.” The big blue eyes shone pathetically through starting tears. Norman held out his hand to her as if she had been a child, and said, huskily: “Sweetheart!” She arose and went to him with the docility of a child, and put her dimpled white hand in his. When he pressed it tightly he felt how she was trembling. “Dear Little Sweetheart, I have wounded you,” he murmured, tenderly. “Forgive me, child. That was a foolish fancy of mine to provide for your future. But it was different then. I did not know it would ever be so that you could come back to live at Verelands. I am glad you did not marry Frank Hinton. I hope you will never marry any one. I want you to stay always at Verelands to make the sunshine brighter and the flowers sweeter, as they have been ever since you came.” His arm slipped around the slender, throbbing waist and pressed it gently. “Never think yourself unwelcome again,” he whispered. “You must never be afraid of me again. Stay at Verelands and be my mother’s daughter, Sweetheart, and my own dear little sister.” He turned and pressed his lips to the tear-wet cheek, and it seemed to him that it suddenly grew cold, the fair head drooped against him, the form grew limp in his arms. For a moment he held her quite unconscious, then she revived and struggled from his clasp. “Let me go,” she said, with sudden coldness; and the next moment, alone in her room, she fell sobbing on the bed. “His sister!” she moaned. “His sister, dear Heaven! just in the moment when I realized I loved him and hoped--hoped--he was going to ask me to be his wife!” CHAPTER XXXVI. Poor little Thea! she knew now why she had suffered with that late remorse for her scorn of her rejected lovers. It was because she had realized in her own heart all the sweetness and the pain of real love, and out of this knowledge could sympathize with the emotion which had once been the butt of her scornful ridicule.