ou were just going to
be married to him. I chose no more wall-papers--tore up all those I had
selected, and left the house. I never entered it again till now.'

'Ah, at last I understand it all,' she murmured.

They had both risen and gone to the fireplace. The mantel came almost on
a level with her shoulder, which gently rested against it, and Barnet
laid his hand upon the shelf close beside her shoulder. 'Lucy,' he said,
'better late than never. Will you marry me now?'

She started back, and the surprise which was so obvious in her wrought
even greater surprise in him that it should be so. It was difficult to
believe that she had been quite blind to the situation, and yet all
reason and common sense went to prove that she was not acting.

'You take me quite unawares by such a question!' she said, with a forced
laugh of uneasiness. It was the first time she had shown any
embarrassment at all. 'Why,' she added, 'I couldn't marry you for the
world.'

'Not after all this! Why not?'

'It is--I would--I really think I may say it--I would upon the whole
rather marry you, Mr. Barnet, than any other man I have ever met, if I
ever dreamed of marriage again. But I don't dream of it--it is quite out
of my thoughts; I have not the least intention of marrying again.'

'But--on my account--couldn't you alter your plans a little? Come!'

'Dear Mr. Barnet,' she said with a little flutter, 'I would on your
account if on anybody's in existence. But you don't know in the least
what it is you are asking--such an impracticable thing--I won't say
ridiculous, of course, because I see that you are really in earnest, and
earnestness is never ridiculous to my mind.'

'Well, yes,' said Barnet more slowly, dropping her hand, which he had
taken at the moment of pleading, 'I am in earnest. The resolve, two
months ago, at the Cape, to come back once more was, it is true, rather
sudden, and as I see now, not well considered. But I am in earnest in
asking.'

'And I in declining. With all good feeling and all kindness, let me say
that I am quite opposed to the idea of marrying a second time.'

'Well, no harm has been done,' he answered, with the same subdued and
tender humorousness that he had shown on such occasions in early life.
'If you really won't accept me, I must put up with it, I suppose.' His
eye fell on the clock as he spoke. 'Had you any notion that it was so
late?' he asked. 'How absorbed I have been!'

She a