u, and that is enough for me. I know I love
you!" he said. "Margaret, can't you care for me a little? Don't tell me
anything you think you should not say. I'm not curious."

Margaret turned back again to her inspection of the pond and its
inmates, grasping the iron railing in front of her and gazing down into
the waters, so that he could not see her face.

"No," she said at last, in a very low voice; "it would not be fair."
Then, after another pause, "There is someone--" she murmured, and
stopped.

This was the last thing Barton had expected. If she did not care for
_him_, he fancied she cared for nobody.

"If you like someone better--" he was beginning.

"But I don't like him at all," interrupted Margaret. "He was very kind,
but--"

"Then can't you like _me_?" asked Barton; and by this time he was very
near her, and was looking down into her face, as curiously as she was
still studying the natural history of Battersea Ponds.

"Perhaps I should not; it is so difficult to know," murmured Margaret.
And yet her rosy confusion, and beautiful lowered eyes, tender and
ashamed, proved that she knew very well. Love is not always so blind
but that Barton saw his opportunity, and was assured that she had
surrendered. And he prepared, a conqueror, to march in with all the
honors and rewards of war; for the place was lonely, and a covenant is
no covenant until it is sealed.

But when he would have kissed her, Margaret disengaged herself gently,
with a little sigh, and returned to the strong defensible position by
the iron railings.

"I must tell you about myself," she said. "I have promised never to
tell, but I must. I have been so tossed about, and so weak, and so many
things have happened." And she sighed.

However impassioned a lover may be, he does naturally prefer that there
should be no mystery about her he adores. Barton had convinced himself
(aided by the eloquence and reposing on the feminine judgment of Mrs.
St. John Deloraine) that Margaret could have nothing that was wrong to
conceal. He could not look at her frank eyes and kind face and suspect
her; though, to anyone but a lover, these natural advantages are no
argument. He, therefore, prepared to gratify an extreme curiosity, and,
by way of comforting and aiding Margaret, was on the point of assuming
an affectionate attitude. But she moved a little away, and, still
turning toward the friendly ponds, began her story:

"The person--the gentleman whom I was