--" I could feel the blood mantling my face and neck, "has
never addressed me."

Mr. Gregory paused, and looked at me.

"This is extraordinary," he said.

"It is--I know it is--it is most of all so to me, for it is wholly unlike
what I have been all my life."

"Let us not talk of this any more to-night, Miss Leigh," he said, with
evident relief; "I have been wrong to press this matter now, when you
are hardly recovered. You are not yourself. This is something
transitory, no doubt. Later on, you may feel differently."

"No, no!" I exclaimed eagerly, "now that we have begun, let us say it
all. Don't--I beg of you, don't go away with a feeling that I don't know
my mind. I am weak and miserable to-night--" here the tears choked my
voice, and I all but broke down, "but I am miserable because I have
learned my true feeling, and know that I must disappoint----"

I could not go on, and again he sat down beside me and took my hand.

"I cannot understand you," he said simply.

"I can't understand myself," I replied; "but all this is none the less
real for that. I have learned of it to-night, but it has existed before;
it explains many things in the past year."

"If that is the case, then I must accept your decision as final."

"It is, indeed," I answered briefly.

He rose, and walked the room in silence again; then pausing once more,
he said calmly, and with no trace of anger.

"This is the disappointment of my life."

I said nothing. What could I say? To utter any platitudes about being
sorry, would have been to insult him.

"A man cannot live to my age--I am fifty-two, Miss Leigh--without
experiencing disappointment, but I have known nothing equal to this."

He paced the room a few moments, and then said:

"This interview must be distressing to you. I am very sorry I brought
it about before you were strong and well."

"Say one thing before you go, Mr. Gregory," I cried, "only say that you
don't think I have willfully misled you--say that you respect me still."

His face was stirred by a slight quiver, as a placid lake is stirred by
an impulse of the evening air.

"You have had, and you always will have my deepest respect, and my
deepest affection."

He took my hand silently, and then quietly left the room.

And I sat there until I heard the front door close. Then I went
upstairs, but I remember nothing after reaching the first landing.

They found me lying there. They said I must have fainted.