he said.

"And is this good that you are doing to me?"

"Yes,--certainly. It is the best that I know how to do now."

"Why is it to be done now? What is it that has changed you?"

She withdrew her hand from him, and waited a while before she
answered. It was necessary that she should tell him all the tidings
that had been conveyed to her in the letter which she had received
from her cousin Walter; but in order that he should perfectly
understand them and be made to know their force upon herself she must
remind him of the stipulation which she had made when she consented
to her engagement. But how could she speak words which would seem
to him to be spoken only to remind him of the abjectness of his
submission to her?

"I was broken-hearted when I came here," she said.

"And therefore you would leave me broken-hearted now."

"You should spare me, Mr. Gilmore. You remember what I told you. I
loved my cousin Walter entirely. I did not hide it from you. I begged
you to leave me because it was so. I told you that my heart would not
change. When I said so, I thought that you would--desist."

"I am to be punished, then, for having been too true to you?"

"I will not defend myself for accepting you at last. But you must
remember that when I did so I said that I should go--back--to him, if
he could take me."

"And you are going back to him?"

"If he will have me."

"You can stand there and look me in the face and tell me that you
are false as that! You can confess to me that you will change like a
weathercock;--be his one day, and then mine, and his again the next!
You can own that you give yourself about first to one man, and then
to another, just as may suit you at the moment! I would not have
believed it of any woman. When you tell it me of yourself, I begin
to think that I have been wrong all through in my ideas of a woman's
character."

The time had now come in which she must indeed speak up. And speech
seemed to be easier with her now that he had allowed himself to
express his anger. He had expressed more than his anger. He had dared
to shower his scorn upon her, and the pelting of the storm gave her
courage. "You are unjust upon me, Mr. Gilmore,--unjust and cruel. You
know in your heart that I have not changed."

"Were you not betrothed to me?"

"I was;--but in what way? Have I told you any untruth? Have I
concealed anything? When I accepted you, did I not explain to
you how and why it was so,--against