ade me so wretched that I
thought it would kill me. I am not proud of it any longer. It is a
foolish poor-spirited weakness,--as though my heart has been only
half formed in the making. Do you be stronger, John. A man should be
stronger than a woman."

"I have none of that sort of strength."

"Nor have I. What can we do but pity each other, and swear that we
will be friends,--dear friends. There is the oak-tree and I have got
to turn back. We have said everything that we can say,--unless you
will tell me that you will be my brother."

"No; I will not tell you that."

"Good-by, then, Johnny."

He paused, holding her by the hand and thinking of another question
which he longed to put to her,--considering whether he would ask her
that question or not. He hardly knew whether he were entitled to ask
it;--whether or no the asking of it would be ungenerous. She had said
that she would tell him everything,--as she had told everything to
her mother. "Of course," he said, "I have no right to expect to know
anything of your future intentions?"

"You may know them all,--as far as I know them myself. I have said
that you should read my heart."

"If this man, whose name I cannot bear to mention, should come
again--"

"If he were to come again he would come in vain, John." She did not
say that he had come again. She could tell her own secret, but not
that of another person.

"You would not marry him, now that he is free?"

She stood and thought for a while before she answered him. "No, I
should not marry him now. I think not." Then she paused again. "Nay,
I am sure I would not. After what has passed I could not trust myself
to do it. There is my hand on it. I will not."

"No, Lily, I do not want that."

"But I insist. I will not marry Mr. Crosbie. But you must not
misunderstand me, John. There;--all that is over for me now. All
those dreams about love, and marriage, and of a house of my own, and
children,--and a cross husband, and a wedding-ring growing always
tighter as I grow fatter and older. I have dreamed of such things as
other girls do,--more perhaps than other girls, more than I should
have done. And now I accept the thing as finished. You wrote
something in your book, you dear John,--something that could not be
made to come true. Dear John, I wish for your sake it was otherwise.
I will go home and I will write in my book, this very day, Lilian
Dale, Old Maid. If ever I make that false, do you come and ask me