tural trust in him,
revived by the deep and now melancholy tones of his voice, and to tell
him of her love, and of what had changed it. But although it seemed
likely that she would soon control her anger with him, the certainty
that he did not love her, confirmed by every word of his proposal,
forbade any freedom of speech. To hear him speak and to feel herself
unable to reply, or constrained in her replies, was so painful that she
longed for the time when she should be alone. A more pliant woman would
have taken this chance of an explanation, whatever risks attached to it;
but to one of Mary's firm and resolute temperament there was degradation
in the idea of self-abandonment; let the waves of emotion rise ever so
high, she could not shut her eyes to what she conceived to be the truth.
Her silence puzzled Ralph. He searched his memory for words or deeds
that might have made her think badly of him. In his present mood
instances came but too quickly, and on top of them this culminating
proof of his baseness--that he had asked her to marry him when his
reasons for such a proposal were selfish and half-hearted.

"You needn't answer," he said grimly. "There are reasons enough, I know.
But must they kill our friendship, Mary? Let me keep that, at least."

"Oh," she thought to herself, with a sudden rush of anguish which
threatened disaster to her self-respect, "it has come to this--to
this--when I could have given him everything!"

"Yes, we can still be friends," she said, with what firmness she could
muster.

"I shall want your friendship," he said. He added, "If you find it
possible, let me see you as often as you can. The oftener the better. I
shall want your help."

She promised this, and they went on to talk calmly of things that had
no reference to their feelings--a talk which, in its constraint, was
infinitely sad to both of them.

One more reference was made to the state of things between them late
that night, when Elizabeth had gone to her room, and the two young men
had stumbled off to bed in such a state of sleep that they hardly felt
the floor beneath their feet after a day's shooting.

Mary drew her chair a little nearer to the fire, for the logs were
burning low, and at this time of night it was hardly worth while to
replenish them. Ralph was reading, but she had noticed for some time
that his eyes instead of following the print were fixed rather above the
page with an intensity of gloom that came to we