when they were passing through a narrow cleft in a wall of rock
through which the Inn roared with a quite respectable fury.

"I am in a mood to believe anything," said Bower. "Do you remember our
first meeting at the Embankment Hotel? Who would have imagined then
that Millicent Jaques, a few weeks later, would rush a thousand miles
to the Maloja and scream her woes to Heaven and the multitude. Neither
you nor I, I fancy, had seen her during the interval. Did she tell you
the cause of her extraordinary behavior?"

"No. I did not ask her. But it scarce needed explanation, Mr. Bower.
I--I fear she suspected me of flirting. It was unjust; but I can well
conceive that a woman who thinks her friend is robbing her of a man's
affections does not wait to consider nice points of procedure."

"Surely Millicent did not say that I had promised to marry her?"

Though Helen was not prepared for this downright plunge into an
embarrassing discussion, she managed to evade a direct answer. "There
was more than a suggestion of that in her words last night," she said.
"Perhaps she thought so in all seriousness. You seem to have
undeceived her to-day, and I am sure you must have dealt with her
kindly, or she would not have acknowledged her mistake in such frank
terms to me. There, now! That is the end of a very disagreeable
episode. Shall we say no more about it?"

Helen was flushed and hurried of speech: but she persevered bravely,
hoping that Bower's tact would not desert him at this crisis. She
quickened her pace a little, with the air of one who has said the last
word on a difficult topic and is anxious to forget it.

Bower overtook her. He grasped her shoulder almost roughly, and drew
her round till she faced him. "You are trying to escape me, Helen!" he
said hoarsely. "That is impossible. Someone must have told you what I
said to Millicent in the hearing of all who chose to listen. Her
amazing outburst forced from me an avowal that should have been made
to you alone. Helen, I want you to be my wife. I love you better than
all the world. I have my faults,--what man is flawless?--but I have
the abiding virtue of loving you. I shall make your life happy, Helen.
For God's sake do not tell me that you are already promised to
another!"

His eyes blazed into hers with a passion that was appalling in its
intensity. She seemed to lose the power to speak or move. She looked
up at him like a frightened child, who hears strange words that s