ng what people are saying--"

"Mrs. Milvain?" Rodney exclaimed. "What has she told you?"

His air of open confidence entirely vanished.

"Oh, people are saying that you're in love with Cassandra, and that you
don't care for me."

"They have seen us?" he asked.

"Everything we've done for a fortnight has been seen."

"I told you that would happen!" he exclaimed.

He walked to the window in evident perturbation. Katharine was too
indignant to attend to him. She was swept away by the force of her own
anger. Clasping Rodney's flowers, she stood upright and motionless.

Rodney turned away from the window.

"It's all been a mistake," he said. "I blame myself for it. I should
have known better. I let you persuade me in a moment of madness. I beg
you to forget my insanity, Katharine."

"She wished even to persecute Cassandra!" Katharine burst out, not
listening to him. "She threatened to speak to her. She's capable of
it--she's capable of anything!"

"Mrs. Milvain is not tactful, I know, but you exaggerate, Katharine.
People are talking about us. She was right to tell us. It only confirms
my own feeling--the position is monstrous."

At length Katharine realized some part of what he meant.

"You don't mean that this influences you, William?" she asked in
amazement.

"It does," he said, flushing. "It's intensely disagreeable to me. I
can't endure that people should gossip about us. And then there's your
cousin--Cassandra--" He paused in embarrassment.

"I came here this morning, Katharine," he resumed, with a change of
voice, "to ask you to forget my folly, my bad temper, my inconceivable
behavior. I came, Katharine, to ask whether we can't return to the
position we were in before this--this season of lunacy. Will you take me
back, Katharine, once more and for ever?"

No doubt her beauty, intensified by emotion and enhanced by the flowers
of bright color and strange shape which she carried wrought upon Rodney,
and had its share in bestowing upon her the old romance. But a less
noble passion worked in him, too; he was inflamed by jealousy. His
tentative offer of affection had been rudely and, as he thought,
completely repulsed by Cassandra on the preceding day. Denham's
confession was in his mind. And ultimately, Katharine's dominion over
him was of the sort that the fevers of the night cannot exorcise.

"I was as much to blame as you were yesterday," she said gently,
disregarding his question. "I confess, Wil