und.

The two men regarded each other in bewilderment. Then again Derrick was
the first to speak.

"Grace," he said, "you have misunderstood me."

Grace answered him with a visible tremor.

"If," he said, "it was to your love for Joan Lowrie you referred when
you spoke to me of your trouble some months ago, I _have_ misunderstood
you. If the obstacles you meant were the obstacles you would find in the
path of such a love, I have misunderstood you. If you did not mean that
your heart had been stirred by a feeling your generous friendship caused
you to regard as unjust to _me_, I have misunderstood you miserably."

"My dear fellow!" Derrick exclaimed, with some emotion. "My dear fellow,
do you mean to tell me that you imagined I referred to Miss Barholm?"

"I was sure of it," was Grace's agitated reply. "As I said before, I
have misunderstood you miserably."

"And yet you had no word of blame for me?"

"I had no right to blame you. I had not lost what I believed you had
won. It had never been mine. It was a mistake," he added, endeavoring to
steady himself. "But don't mind me, Derrick. Let us try to set it right;
only I am afraid you will have to begin again."

Derrick drew a heavy breath. He took up a paper-knife from the table,
and began to bend it in his hands.

"Yes," he said, "we shall have to begin again. And it is told in a few
words," he said, with a deliberateness painful in its suggestion of an
intense effort at self-control. "Grace, what would you think of a
man who found himself setting reason at defiance, and in spite of all
obstacles confronting the possibility of loving and marrying--if she can
be won--such a woman as Joan Lowrie?"

"You are putting me in a difficult position," Paul answered. "If he
would dare so much, he would be the man to dare to decide for himself."

Derrick tossed the paper-knife aside.

"And you know that I am the person in question. _I_ have so defied the
world, in spite of myself at first, I must confess. _I_ have confronted
the possibility of loving Joan Lowrie until I _do_ love her. So there
the case stands."

Gradually there dawned upon the Curate's mind certain remembrances
connected with Joan. Now and then she had puzzled and startled him, but
here, possibly, might be a solution of the mystery.

"And Joan Lowrie herself?" he asked, questioningly.

"Joan Lowrie herself," said Derrick, "is no nearer to me to-day than she
was a year ago."

"Are you,"--hesitati