f force,
--of life itself.

"Dorothy," I cried; "Dorothy, I stayed because I love you. There, I have
said it again, what has not passed my lips since we were children. What
has been in my heart ever since."

I stopped, awed. For she had stepped back, out on the balcony. She hid
her head in her hands, and I saw her breast shaken as with sobs. I
waited what seemed a day,--a year. Then she raised her face and looked
at me through the tears shining in her eyes.

"Richard," she said sadly, "why, why did you ever tell me? Why can we
not always be playmates?"

The words I tried to say choked me. I could not speak for sorrow, for
very bitterness. And yet I might have known! I dared not look at her
again.

"Dear Richard," I heard her say, "God alone understands how it hurts me
to give you pain. Had I only foreseen--"

"Had you only foreseen," I said quickly.

"I should never have let you speak."

Her words came steadily, but painfully. And when I raised my eyes she
met them bravely.

"You must have seen," I cried. "These years I have loved you, nor could
I have hidden it if I had wished. But I have little--to offer you," I
went on cruelly, for I knew not what I said; "you who may have English
lands and titles for the consenting. I was a fool."

Her tears started again. And at sight of them I was seized with such
remorse that I could have bitten my tongue in two.

"Forgive me, Dorothy, if you can," I implored. "I did not mean it. Nor
did I presume to think you loved me. I have adored,--I shall be content
to adore from far below. And I stayed,--I stayed that I might save you
if a danger threatened."

"Danger!" she exclaimed, catching her breath.

"I will come to the point," I said. "I stayed to save you from the Duke
of Chartersea."

She grasped the balcony rail, and I think would have fallen but for my
arm. Then she straightened, and only the quiver of her lip marked the
effort.

"To save me from the Duke of Chartersea?" she said, so coldly that my
conviction was shaken. "Explain yourself, sir."

"You cannot love him!" I cried, amazed.

She flashed upon me a glance I shall never forget.

"Richard Carvel," she said, "you have gone too far. Though you have been
my friend all my life, there are some things which even you cannot say to
me."

And she left me abruptly and went into the house, her head flung back.
And I followed in a tumult of mortification and wounded pride, in such a
state of dejection that