"Then won't you tell me why you treat me so?" His indignation had vanished; his tone was very humble. "I cannot help seeing that you have changed, and I have done nothing, I _could_ do nothing, wittingly, to hurt you." "You have not done anything to offend _me_," she said in a low tone, with a slight accent on the pronoun. "Then what has changed you? We are not good friends any more?" His voice was inquiring. She would have given much to contradict him, but her nature was essentially honest, and she breathed the low answer, "No." "I feared it, I knew it; but don't you think you might, at least, tell me the reason?" He was surprised at his own meekness. The girl looked down into the murmuring, brown Water. Something arose in her throat and threatened to choke her. If he would only not be so humble. If he were haughty and indignant, her task would be much easier. And then, might she not be wrong? Oh, if he would only tell her she was mistaken! She struggled for some words by which she might avoid telling him the truth, but she was a country-bred girl, all unused to the small equivocations of social usage, and the uncompromising integrity of her nature forbade trifling. "Dr. Allen," she faltered at last, "I--perhaps I have judged you harshly. Please do not ask me the reason. I would rather not talk about it." "But I do ask you," said Gilbert determinedly. "Is it quite fair to condemn a man unheard?" "I may have accused you wrongly," she said, the necessity of the case driving her again to speech, "but I--we all"--she plucked a feathery spray of the long-stemmed water-grass and examined it minutely--"everybody thought you so good and kind--and I learned something--accidentally--that disappointed me." She glanced up with a mute appeal; but his looks were uncompromising. "Well?" he asked quietly. She looked up and down the shadowy ravine as if seeking help. Why not tell him? There could be no harm to Arabella. He would know soon, anyway, and she need not mention the wedding, and perhaps he might vindicate himself. So, with her eyes on the golden-brown pool at her feet, she told him the story, simply and sorrowfully, and as gently as possible, of Miss Arabella's years of patient waiting, of the blue silk gown laid away so long, of all Martin had suffered from poverty and sickness, unhelped when he needed help so badly; and then of the sequel of the story which he himself had told.