amt about you;
I've thought of nothing but you; you represent to me the only reality in
the world."

His words, and the queer strained voice in which he spoke them, made it
appear as if he addressed some person who was not the woman beside him,
but some one far away.

"And now things have come to such a pass that, unless I can speak to you
openly, I believe I shall go mad. I think of you as the most beautiful,
the truest thing in the world," he continued, filled with a sense of
exaltation, and feeling that he had no need now to choose his words with
pedantic accuracy, for what he wanted to say was suddenly become plain
to him.

"I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me you're
everything that exists; the reality of everything. Life, I tell you,
would be impossible without you. And now I want--"

She had heard him so far with a feeling that she had dropped some
material word which made sense of the rest. She could hear no more of
this unintelligible rambling without checking him. She felt that she was
overhearing what was meant for another.

"I don't understand," she said. "You're saying things that you don't
mean."

"I mean every word I say," he replied, emphatically. He turned his head
towards her. She recovered the words she was searching for while he
spoke. "Ralph Denham is in love with you." They came back to her in Mary
Datchet's voice. Her anger blazed up in her.

"I saw Mary Datchet this afternoon," she exclaimed.

He made a movement as if he were surprised or taken aback, but answered
in a moment:

"She told you that I had asked her to marry me, I suppose?"

"No!" Katharine exclaimed, in surprise.

"I did though. It was the day I saw you at Lincoln," he continued. "I
had meant to ask her to marry me, and then I looked out of the window
and saw you. After that I didn't want to ask any one to marry me. But
I did it; and she knew I was lying, and refused me. I thought then, and
still think, that she cares for me. I behaved very badly. I don't defend
myself."

"No," said Katharine, "I should hope not. There's no defence that I can
think of. If any conduct is wrong, that is." She spoke with an energy
that was directed even more against herself than against him. "It seems
to me," she continued, with the same energy, "that people are bound
to be honest. There's no excuse for such behavior." She could now see
plainly before her eyes the expression on Mary Datchet's face.

After a short pa