avoided
looking at him he did not observe the fact.

"Grace," he said, after a silence, "I have a sort of confession to make.
I am in a difficulty, and I rather blame myself for not having come to
you before."

"Don't blame yourself," said the Curate, faintly. "You--you are not to
blame."

Then Derrick glanced up at him quickly. This sounded so significant
of some previous knowledge of his trouble, that he was taken aback. He
could not quite account for it.

"What!" he exclaimed. "Is it possible that you have guessed it already?"

"I have thought so--sometimes I have thought so--though I feel as if I
ought almost to ask your pardon for going so far."

Grace had but one thought as he spoke. His friend's trouble meant his
friend's honor and regard for himself. It was for his sake that Derrick
was hesitating on the brink of a happy love--unselfishly fearing for
him. He knew the young man's impetuous generosity, and saw how under the
circumstances, it might involve him. Loving Anice Barholm with the full
strength of a strong nature, Derrick was generous enough still to shrink
from his prospect of success with the woman his friend had failed to
win.

Derrick flung himself back in his chair with a sigh. He was thinking,
with secret irritation, that he must have felt even more than he had
acknowledged to himself since he had in all unconsciousness, confessed
so much.

"You have saved me the trouble of putting into words a feeling I have
not words to explain," he said. "Perhaps that is the reason why I have
not spoken openly before. Grace,"--abruptly,--"I have fancied there was
a cloud between us."

"Between us!" said Grace, eagerly and warmly. "No, no! That was a poor
fancy indeed; I could not bear that."

"Nor I," impetuously. "But I cannot be explicit even now, Grace--even
my thoughts are not explicit. I have been bewildered and--yes,
amazed--amazed at finding that I had gone so far without knowing it.
Surely there never was a passion--if it is really a passion--that had so
little to feed upon."

"So little!" echoed Grace.

Derrick got up and began to walk across the floor.

"I have nothing--nothing, and I am beset on every side."

There was something extraordinary in the blindness of a man with an
absorbing passion. Absorbed by his passion for one woman, Grace was
blind to the greatest of inconsistencies in his friend's speech and
manner. Absorbed in his passion for another woman, Derrick forgot for
the