said, gravely, "you are not yourself, I am sure."

"It is for my life," she said. "I am asking for my life!"

"You are easily excited and impulsive," I said; "that music has
bewildered you. I do love you, Coralie; so does Clare. You are our
kinswoman and our charge. How can we help loving you?"

"Ah, me!" she moaned, "you will not understand; it is not that love,
Edgar. I want to pass my life by your side. I want your joys to be
mine--your sorrows to be mine, darling; I want to share your interests.
Will you not understand?"

"I do understand, Coralie. All the love of my heart is given--gone from
me. Only this day I asked Miss Thesiger to be my wife, and she
consented. All my love, my faith, my loyalty are hers."

I shall never forget how that fair woman rose and looked at me. The
love-light and the mist of tears died from her eyes. All the lovely
color faded from her face.

"You have slain me; you have given me, my death-blow!"

"Nay, Coralie; you are too sensible and brave."

She waved her hand with a gesture commanding silence.

"Do not seek to comfort me," she said. "You cannot. I have humiliated
myself in vain. I have shown the depth of my heart, the very secrets of
my soul, only that you may laugh at me with your fair-faced Agatha."

"Hush, Coralie; you have no right to say such things; what you have just
said will never pass my lips. I shall not even think of it. You cannot
suspect me of the meanness to talk to Miss Thesiger of anything of the
kind."

She looked at me with a dazed face, as though she could barely grasp my
meaning.

"Tell me it again," she said. "I cannot believe it."

"Listen, Coralie: I love Agatha Thesiger with all my heart, and hope
very soon to make her my wife. I love her so dearly that I have no room
in my heart for even a thought of any other woman."

Her face grew ghastly in its pallor.

"That is sufficient," she said; "now I understand."

"We will both forget what has been said tonight, Coralie; we will never
think of it, but for the future be good cousins and good friends."

"No," she said, proudly; "there can be no friendship between us."

"You will think better of it; believe me, you have no truer friends than
Clare and myself."

"If I ask for bread and you give me a stone, is that anything to make me
grateful? But I declare to you, Sir Edgar Trevelyan, that you have
slain me; you have slain the womanhood in me tonight by the most cruel
blow!"

She looked so w