posite shutter, and fixed his eyes a little sadly,
but very observantly, on her, as she leaned back against the shutter,
sobbing low, but hysterically, and quivering all over.

"There's some other man at the bottom of this," thought George Neville.

"Mistress Kate," said he, gently, "I do not come here to make you weep.
I love you like a gentleman. If you love another, take courage, tell me
so, and don't let your father constrain your inclinations. Dearly as I
love you, I would not wed your person, and your heart another's: that
would be too cruel to you, and" (drawing himself up with sudden majesty)
"too unjust to myself."

Kate looked up at him through her tears, and admired this man, who could
love ardently, yet be proud and just. And if this appeal to her candor
had been made yesterday, she would have said, frankly, "There is one
I--esteem." But, since the quarrel, she would not own to herself, far
less to another, that she loved a man who had turned his back upon her.
So she _parried_.

"There is no one I love enough to wed," said she. "I am a cold-hearted
girl, born to give pain to my betters. But I shall do something
desperate to end all this."

"All what?" said he, keenly.

"The whole thing: my unprofitable life."

"Mistress Kate," said Neville, "I asked you, was there another man. If
you had answered me, 'In truth there is, but he is poor and my father is
averse or the like,' then I would have secretly sought that man, and, as
I am very rich, you should have been happy."

"Oh, Mr. Neville, that is very generous, but how meanly you must think
of me!"

"And what a bungler you must think me! I tell you, you should never have
known. But let that pass; you have answered my question; and you say
there is no man you love. Then I say you shall be Dame Neville."

"What, whether I will or no?"

"Yes; whether you _think_ you will or no."

Catharine turned her dreamy eyes on him.

"You have had a good master. Why did you not come to me sooner?"

She was thinking more of him than of herself, and, in fact, paying too
little heed to her words. But she had no sooner uttered this inadvertent
speech than she felt she had said too much. She blushed rosy red, and
hid her face in her hands in the most charming confusion.

"Sweetest, it is not an hour too late, as you do not love another," was
stout George Neville's reply.

But nevertheless the cunning rogue thought it safest to temporize, and
put his coy mistres