tell me,
Cuthbert--something that an old friend would tell to another? I have
been expecting you to tell me all the time you were in the hospital, and
have felt hurt you did not."

Cuthbert looked at her in surprise. There was a slight flush on her
cheek and it was evident that she was deeply in earnest.

"Tell you something, Mary," he repeated. "I really don't know what you
mean--no, honestly, I have not a notion."

"I don't wish to pry into your secrets," she said, coldly. "I learned
them accidentally, but as you don't wish to take me into your confidence
we will say no more about it."

"But we must say more about it," he replied. "I repeat I have no idea of
what you are talking about. I have no secret whatever on my mind. By
your manner it must be something serious, and I think I have a right to
know what it is."

She was silent for a moment and then said--

"If you wish it I can have no possible objection to tell you. I will
finish the question I began twice. I should have thought that you would
have wished that your stores should be sent to the lady you are engaged
to."

Cuthbert looked at her in silent surprise.

"My dear Mary," he said, gravely, at last, "either you are dreaming or I
am. I understood that your reply to my question, the year before last,
was as definite and as absolute a refusal as a man could receive.
Certainly I have not from that moment had any reason to entertain a
moment's doubt that you yourself intended it as a rejection."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, rising to her feet with an
energy of which a few minutes before she would have deemed herself
altogether incapable. "Are you pretending that I am alluding to myself,
are you insulting me by suggesting that I mean that I am engaged to
you?"

"All I say is, Mary, that if you do not mean that, I have not the most
remote idea in the world what you do mean."

"You say that because you think it is impossible I should know," Mary
retorted, indignantly, "but you are mistaken. I have had it from her own
lips."

"That she was engaged to me?"

"She came to the hospital to see you the night you were brought in, and
she claimed admittance on the ground that she was affianced to you."

Cuthbert's surprise changed to alarm as it flashed across him that the
heavy work and strain had been too much for the girl, and that her brain
had given way.

"I think that there must be some mistake, Mary," he said, soothingly.

"There is