hether I shall give it up or keep it
longer. But if longer, it will be for ever. And I warn you, if
you give it to me then, it will be a closer and sweeter
guardianship than you have had yet, Hazel. I will keep what I
love, so dearly and absolutely as I love her. But I shall not
speak to you again on this subject until the year's end. You
need not be afraid. I mean to see you and to let you see me;
but you will hear no more about this till the time comes.'

No answer, even then, only the trembling of the little hand.
Dark as it was, she turned her head yet more away, laying her
other cheek upon the window.

'Are we friends now?' he said somewhat lower.

'Mr. Rollo'--she began. But the tremor had found its way to the
girl's voice, and she broke off short.

'Well?' said he. 'That is one of the parties. I meant, Mr.
Rollo and Hazel.'

'Be quiet!' she said impatiently,--'and let me speak.' But what
Hazel wanted to say, did not immediately appear.

He answered by a clasp of her hand, and waited.

'I am quiet,'--he suggested at length.

The girl made a desperate effort, and lifted up her head, and
sat back in her place, to answer; but managing her voice very
much like spun glass, which might give way in the using; and
evidently choosing her words with great care, every now and
then just missing the wrong one.

'You go on making statements,' she said, catching her breath,
'and I--have taken up none of them, because I cannot,--because
if,--I mean, I have let them _all_ pass, Mr. Rollo.'--If truth
demanded a greater sacrifice just then, it could not be
because this one was small.

'I know,' he answered. 'Will you do better now? What mistake
has your silence led me into, or left me in?'

'I said nothing about mistakes. And I always do as well as I
can at first,' said Hazel, with a touch of the same
impatience.

'My statements did not call for an answer. But I am going to
say some other things to which I do want an answer. Shall I go
on?'

'You know what they are,' she said.

'I want you,' he went on, speaking slowly and deliberately,
'to give me your promise that you will not waltz any more
until the year is out that I spoke of.'

She answered presently, speaking in a measured sort of way,
'That is one thing. The other?'

'I want your promise to the first.'

'Suppose I am not ready to give it?'

'I ask for it, all the same.'

Again she sorted her words.

'Well then--I am not ready,--I mean, not will