projected _debut_ at the Music Hall.
Before he went back to Marmion he wrote to this young lady, to announce
his reappearance there and let her know that he expected she would come
out to meet him the morning after. This conveyed the assurance that he
intended to take as much of the day as he could get; he had had enough
of the system of dragging through all the hours till a mere fraction of
time was left before night, and he couldn't wait so long, at any rate,
the day after his return. It was the afternoon train that had brought
him back from Provincetown, and in the evening he ascertained that the
Bostonians had not deserted the field. There were lights in the windows
of the house under the elms, and he stood where he had stood that
evening with Doctor Prance and listened to the waves of Verena's voice,
as she rehearsed her lecture. There were no waves this time, no sounds,
and no sign of life but the lamps; the place had apparently not ceased
to be given over to the conscious silence described by Doctor Prance.
Ransom felt that he gave an immense proof of chivalry in not calling
upon Verena to grant him an interview on the spot. She had not answered
his last note, but the next day she kept the tryst, at the hour he had
proposed; he saw her advance along the road, in a white dress, under a
big parasol, and again he found himself liking immensely the way she
walked. He was dismayed, however, at her face and what it portended;
pale, with red eyes, graver than she had ever been before, she appeared
to have spent the period of his absence in violent weeping. Yet that it
was not for him she had been crying was proved by the very first word
she spoke.

"I only came out to tell you definitely it's impossible! I have thought
over everything, taking plenty of time--over and over; and that is my
answer, finally, positively. You must take it--you shall have no other."

Basil Ransom gazed, frowning fearfully. "And why not, pray?"

"Because I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't!" she repeated passionately,
with her altered, distorted face.

"Damnation!" murmured the young man. He seized her hand, drew it into
his arm, forcing her to walk with him along the road.

That afternoon Olive Chancellor came out of her house and wandered for a
long time upon the shore. She looked up and down the bay, at the sails
that gleamed on the blue water, shifting in the breeze and the light;
they were a source of interest to her that they had neve