ts. "I go with Marty to Giles's grave.
We swore we would show him that devotion. And I mean to keep it up."

"Well, I wouldn't mind that at all. I have no right to expect anything
else, and I will not wish you to keep away. I liked the man as well as
any I ever knew. In short, I would accompany you a part of the way to
the place, and smoke a cigar on the stile while I waited till you came
back."

"Then you haven't given up smoking?"

"Well--ahem--no. I have thought of doing so, but--"

His extreme complacence had rather disconcerted Grace, and the question
about smoking had been to effect a diversion. Presently she said,
firmly, and with a moisture in her eye that he could not see, as her
mind returned to poor Giles's "frustrate ghost," "I don't like you--to
speak lightly on that subject, if you did speak lightly. To be frank
with you--quite frank--I think of him as my betrothed lover still. I
cannot help it. So that it would be wrong for me to join you."

Fitzpiers was now uneasy. "You say your betrothed lover still," he
rejoined. "When, then, were you betrothed to him, or engaged, as we
common people say?"

"When you were away."

"How could that be?"

Grace would have avoided this; but her natural candor led her on. "It
was when I was under the impression that my marriage with you was about
to be annulled, and that he could then marry me. So I encouraged him
to love me."

Fitzpiers winced visibly; and yet, upon the whole, she was right in
telling it. Indeed, his perception that she was right in her absolute
sincerity kept up his affectionate admiration for her under the pain of
the rebuff. Time had been when the avowal that Grace had deliberately
taken steps to replace him would have brought him no sorrow. But she
so far dominated him now that he could not bear to hear her words,
although the object of her high regard was no more.

"It is rough upon me--that!" he said, bitterly. "Oh, Grace--I did not
know you--tried to get rid of me! I suppose it is of no use, but I
ask, cannot you hope to--find a little love in your heart for me again?"

"If I could I would oblige you; but I fear I cannot!" she replied, with
illogical ruefulness. "And I don't see why you should mind my having
had one lover besides yourself in my life, when you have had so many."

"But I can tell you honestly that I love you better than all of them
put together, and that's what you will not tell me!"

"I am sorry; b