antly. "It was I, of my own free will, who gave him
up."

"Prove that to him by accepting _me_."

"You think he wants proof?" She is facing him now, and her eyes are
flashing in the growing twilight.

"I do," says Stephen, defiantly. "For months he has treated you with all
the airs of a proprietor, and you have submitted to it. All the world
could see it. He will believe you _sorry_ by-and-by for what has now
happened; and if he should marry before you, what will they all
say--what will you feel? What--"

She is now as pale as death. She lifts her hand and lays it impulsively
against his lips, as though to prevent his further speech. She is
trembling a little (from anger, she tells herself), and her breath is
coming quickly and unevenly, so she stands for a moment collecting
herself, with her fingers pressed against his lips, and then the
agitation dies, and a strange coldness takes its place.

"You are sure you love me?" she asks, at length, in a hard, clear voice,
so unlike her usual soft tones, that it startles even herself.

"My beloved, can't you see it?" he says, with deep emotion.

"Very well, then, I will marry you some day. And--and to-morrow--it must
be _to-morrow_--you will let Roger know I am engaged to you? You quite
understand?"

He does, though he will not acknowledge it even to himself.

"Dulce, my own soul!" he says, brokenly; and, kneeling on the grass at
her feet, he lifts both her hands and presses them passionately to his
lips.

They are so cold and lifeless that they chill him to his very heart.

CHAPTER XVII.

"Too early seen unknown, and known too late!"
--ROMEO AND JULIET.

"There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee."
--HENRY IV.

IT is next day. There has been rain in the night--_heavy_ rain--and the
earth looks soaked and brown and desolate. Great storms, too, had
arisen, and scattered the unoffending leaves far and wide, until all the
paths are strewn with rustling types of death. Just now the drops are
falling, too--not so angrily as at the midnight past, but persistently,
and with a miserable obstinacy that defies all hope of sunshine. "The
windy night" has made "a rainy morrow," and sorrowful, indeed, is the
face of Nature.

Sorrowful, too, is the household. A lack of geniality pervades it from
garret to basement; no one seems quite to know what is the matter,