you are asking her to tell no one you
have done so. Your proposal is an insult; take back your offer. No
honorable man would make it. No honorable girl could accept it."

"Yanna has given me her word. She has promised to be my wife."

Peter did not answer him; but throwing open the door, he called,
"Yanna! Yanna! Come here to me!"

Something in his voice frightened Yanna. She came hastily downstairs,
the tears she had been shedding still upon her cheeks. "Yanna," said
her father, as he drew her close to his side, "Mr. Filmer wants to
marry you--sometime. In the meantime, he does not want you to tell any
one that he wants to marry you. Do you think that an honorable
offer?"

"No!--but, father, Harry has reasons we cannot properly appreciate.
Society is cruel to those who have to live in it."

"Right is right, and wrong is wrong, wherever and however men and
women live! It is wrong to ask a woman to marry, and then say, 'Do not
tell any one I have asked you.'"

"Sir!" cried Harry, approaching Yanna, "Sir! you state the situation
most cruelly. It is not fair to me. I am in a great strait. Yanna,
dearest Yanna! cannot you say a word for me?"

"There is nothing to be said," answered Peter. "Under no circumstances
will I recognize a secret engagement. To do so is to engage my
daughter to sorrow, and hope deferred, and miserable backbiting! Any
engagement between Yanna and yourself, Mr. Filmer, must be openly
acknowledged on both sides. I make no point of it being acknowledged
at the ball to-morrow; that was perhaps an old man's romancing--but
if you will have no publicity, I will have no secrecy."

"May I speak alone with Yanna, sir?"

"You may. I put no bond on Yanna's words or actions, in any way. Honor
will constrain her to treat herself, and her father also, with honor!"
Then he went out of the room, and left Harry standing by Yanna's side.
He took her in his arms, and she did not immediately, or with anger,
withdraw herself. She was more able than Peter to understand the
'great strait' in which the young man found himself. She suffered
Harry to kiss the tears off her eyelids and to whisper anew his
adoring affection for her.

"Cannot you trust me, Yanna?" he asked. "Cannot you trust me a little
while, dearest one?"

"I will trust you, Harry; and you must trust me; for there can be no
engagement between us until father is satisfied. Perhaps Antony will
explain things in some better way to him."

"No, he w