hing at her bidding. Why should I? She had been
my enemy throughout, since she found that the money belonged to her
son and not to me."

"And all this time you have seen him frequently?"

"I have seen him sometimes about the business."

"And he has never said a word to you about your engagement to him?"

"Never a word."

"Nor you to him?"

"Oh, no! how could I speak to him about it?"

"I would have done so. I would not have had my heart crushed within
me. But perhaps you were right. Perhaps it was best to be patient."

"I know that I have been wrong to expect anything or to hope for
anything," said Margaret. "What right have I to hope for anything
when I refused him while I was rich?"

"That has nothing to do with it."

"When he asked me again, he only did it because he pitied me. I don't
want to be any man's wife because he pities me."

"But you accepted him."

"Yes; because I loved him."

"And now?" Again Miss Mackenzie sat silent, still moving her fingers
among the locks upon her brow. "And now, Margaret?" repeated Mrs
Mackenzie.

"What's the use of it now?"

"But you do love him?"

"Of course I love him. How shall it be otherwise? What has he done
to change my love? His feelings have changed, and I have no right to
blame him. He has changed; and I hate myself, because I feel that
in coming here I have, as it were, run after him. I should have put
myself in some place where no thought of marrying him should ever
have come again to me."

"Margaret, you are wrong throughout."

"Am I? Everybody always says that I am always wrong."

"If I can understand anything of the matter, Sir John Ball has not
changed."

"Then, why--why--why?"

"Ah, yes, exactly; why? Why is it that men and women cannot always
understand each other; that they will remain for hours in each
other's presence without the power of expressing, by a single word,
the thoughts that are busy within them? Who can say why it is so? Can
you get up and make a clean breast of it all to him?"

"But I am a woman, and am very poor."

"Yes, and he is a man, and, like most men, very dumb when they have
anything at heart which requires care in the speaking. He knows no
better than to let things be as they are; to leave the words all
unspoken till he can say to you, 'Now is the time for us to go and
get ourselves married;' just as he might tell you that now was the
time to go and dine."

"But will he ever say that?"

"Of course he will