after Silverbridge."

"I mean to do so;--but I am taking you by the way."

"It is all unmanly," she said, rising from her stone; "you know
that it is so. Friends! Do you mean to say that it would make no
difference whether you were here with me or with Miss Cass?"

"The greatest difference in the world."

"Because she is an old woman and I am a young one, and because in
intercourse between young men and young women there is something
dangerous to the women and therefore pleasant to the men."

"I never heard anything more unjust. You cannot think I desire
anything injurious to you."

"I do think so." She was still standing and spoke now with great
vehemence. "I do think so. You force me to throw aside the reticence
I ought to keep. Would it help me in my prospects if your friend Lord
Silverbridge knew that I was here?"

"How should he know?"

"But if he did? Do you suppose that I want to have visits paid to me
of which I am afraid to speak? Would you dare to tell Lady Mary that
you had been sitting alone with me on the rocks at Grex?"

"Certainly I would."

"Then it would be because you have not dared to tell her certain
other things which have gone before. You have sworn to her no doubt
that you love her better than all the world."

"I have."

"And you have taken the trouble to come here to tell me that,--to
wound me to the core by saying so; to show me that, though I may
still be sick, you have recovered,--that is if you ever suffered! Go
your way and let me go mine. I do not want you."

"Mabel!"

"I do not want you. I know you will not help me, but you need not
destroy me."

"You know that you are wronging me."

"No! You understand it all though you look so calm. I hate your Lady
Mary Palliser. There! But if by anything I could do I could secure
her to you I would do it,--because you want it."

"She will be your sister-in-law,--probably."

"Never. It will never be so."

"Why do you hate her?"

"There again! You are so little of a man that you can ask me why!"
Then she turned away as though she intended to go down to the marge
of the lake.

But he rose up and stopped her. "Let us have this out, Mabel, before
we go," he said. "Unmanly is a heavy word to hear from you, and you
have used it a dozen times."

"It is because I have thought it a thousand times. Go and get her if
you can;--but why tell me about it?"

"You said you would help me."

"So I would, as I would help you do anything y