y, "that I am engaged
to my cousin Percival."

He rose to his feet, and withdrew two or three paces, looking down on
her in silent consternation. She did not lift her eyes, but she felt
that his gaze was upon her. It seemed to pierce to the very marrow of
her bones, to the bottom of her heart.

"Is this true?" he said at last, in a voice as changed as her own had
been--hoarse and broken almost beyond recognition. "And you never told
me?"

"Why should I have told you? Only my uncle knows. It was a secret," she
answered, in a clearer and colder tone. "I am sorry you did not know."

"So am I. God knows that I am sorry," said the young man, turning away
to hide the look of bitter despair and disappointment, which he could
not help but feel was too visibly imprinted on his face. "For if I had
known, I might never have dared to love you. If I had known, I should
never have dreamt of you as my wife."

At the sound of these two words, a shiver ran through her frame, as if a
cold wind had blown over her from the mountain-heights above. She did
not speak, however, and Brian went on in the low, difficult voice which
told the intensity of his feelings more clearly than his words.

"I have been blind--mad, perhaps--but I thought that there was a hope
for me. I fancied that you cared for me a little, that you guessed what
I felt--that you, perhaps, felt it also. Oh, you need not tell me that I
have been presumptuous. I see it now. But it was my one hope in life--I
had nothing left; and I loved you."

His voice sank; he still stood with his face averted; a bitter silence
fell upon him. For the moment he thought of the many losses and sorrows
that he had experienced, and it seemed to him that this was the
bitterest one of all. Elizabeth sat like a statue; her face was pale,
her under-lip bitten, her hands tightly clasped together. At the end of
some minutes' silence she roused herself to speak. There was an accent
of hurt pride in her voice, but there was a tremor, too.

"I gave you no reason to think so, Mr. Stretton," she said.

"No," he answered, still without turning round. "I see now; I made a
mistake."

"That you should ever have made the mistake," said Elizabeth, slowly,
"seems to me----"

She did not finish the sentence. She spoke so slowly that Brian found it
easy to interrupt her. He turned and broke impetuously into the middle
of her phrase.

"It seems an insult--I understand. But I do not mean it as an insult