s of a hero. At
that moment he could not endure it. In a splendid burst of
self-sacrifice he suddenly startled both Grizel and himself by crying,
"Elspeth, I love Grizel, and I have just asked her to be my wife."

Yes, the nobility of it amazed himself, but bewitched him, too, and he
turned gloriously to Grizel, never doubting but that she would have
him still.

He need not have spoken so impulsively, nor looked so grand. She
swayed for an instant and then was erect again. "You must forgive me,
Elspeth," she said, "but I have refused him"; and that was the biggest
surprise Tommy ever got in his life.

"You don't care for him!" Elspeth blurted out.

"Not in the way he cares for me," Grizel replied quietly, and when
Elspeth would have said more she begged her to desist. "The only thing
for me to do now, Elspeth," she said, smiling, "is to run away, but I
want you first to accept a little wedding-gift from me. I wish you and
David so much happiness; you won't refuse it, will you?"

Elspeth, still astounded, took the gift. It was a little garnet ring.

"It will have to be cut," Grizel said. "It was meant, I think, for a
larger finger. I have had it some time, but I never wore it."

Elspeth said she would always treasure her ring, and that it was
beautiful.

"I used to think it--rather sweet," Grizel admitted, and then she said
good-bye to them both and went away.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE MONSTER

Tommy's new character was that of a monster. He always liked the big
parts.

Concealed, as usual, in the garments that clung so oddly to him,
modesty, generosity, indifference to applause and all the nobler
impulses, he could not strip himself of them, try as he would, and so
he found, to his scornful amusement, that he still escaped the public
fury. In the two months that preceded Elspeth's marriage there was
positively scarce a soul in Thrums who did not think rather well of
him. "If they knew what I really am," he cried with splendid
bitterness, "how they would run from me!"

Even David could no longer withhold the hand of fellowship, for Grizel
would tell him nothing, except that, after all, and for reasons
sufficient to herself, she had declined to become Mrs. Sandys. He
sought in vain to discover how Tommy could be to blame. "And now,"
Tommy said grimly to Grizel, "our doctor thinks you have used me
badly, and that I am a fine fellow to bear no resentment! Elspeth told
me that he admires the gentle and man