found the
question very difficult to ask.

"But do you care for William?"

She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl's expression, and
how she looked away from her.

"Do you mean, am I in love with him?" Cassandra asked, breathing
quickly, and nervously moving her hands.

"Yes, in love with him," Katharine repeated.

"How can I love the man you're engaged to marry?" Cassandra burst out.

"He may be in love with you."

"I don't think you've any right to say such things, Katharine,"
Cassandra exclaimed. "Why do you say them? Don't you mind in the least
how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn't bear
it!"

"We're not engaged," said Katharine, after a pause.

"Katharine!" Cassandra cried.

"No, we're not engaged," Katharine repeated. "But no one knows it but
ourselves."

"But why--I don't understand--you're not engaged!" Cassandra said again.
"Oh, that explains it! You're not in love with him! You don't want to
marry him!"

"We aren't in love with each other any longer," said Katharine, as if
disposing of something for ever and ever.

"How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine,"
Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse
together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a
dreamy quietude.

"You're not in love with him?"

"But I love him," said Katharine.

Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for
some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was
that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from
observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and
apparently overcome by her thoughts.

"D'you know what time it is?" she said at length, and shook her pillow,
as if making ready for sleep.

Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps the
white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing in
the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in her
sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so.

"There's no reason why I should go home, then?" Cassandra said, pausing.
"Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What DO you want me to do?"

For the first time their eyes met.

"You wanted us to fall in love," Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read the
certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised her.
The tears rose slowly in Katharine's eyes and stood there, brimming