his eyes the position
was indeed cruel.

Yet, deeply as she sympathised with him in his disappointment, Stella
never for one moment wavered in her determination. Marry Mr. Layard! Her
blood shrank back to her heart at the very thought, and then rushed to
her neck and bosom in a flood of shame. No, she was sorry, but that was
impossible, a thing which no woman should be asked to do against her
will.

The subject wearied her, but as brooding on it could not mend matters,
she dismissed it from her mind, and turned her thoughts to Morris. Why,
she did not know, but something had come between them; he was vexed with
her, and what was more, disappointed; she could feel it well enough,
and--she found his displeasure painful. What had she done wrong, how had
she offended him? Surely it could not be--and once again that red blush
spread itself over face and bosom. He could not believe that she had
accepted the man! He could never have so grossly misunderstood her, her
nature, her ideas, everything about her! And yet who knew what he would
or would not believe? In some ways, as she had already discovered, Mr.
Monk was curiously simple. How could she tell him the truth without
using words which she did not desire to speak? Here instinct came to her
aid. It might be done by making herself as agreeable to him as possible,
for surely he must know that no girl would do her best to please one
man when she had just promised herself to another. So it came about that
quite innocently Stella determined to allay her host's misgivings by
this doubtful and dangerous expedient.

To begin with, she put on her best dress--a low bodice of black silk
relieved with white and a single scarlet rose from the hothouse. Round
her neck also, fastened by a thin chain, she wore a large blood-red
carbuncle shaped like a heart, and about her slender waist a quaint
girdle of ancient Danish silver, two of the ornaments which she had
saved from the shipwreck. Her dark and waving hair she parted in the
middle after a new fashion, tying its masses in a heavy knot at the back
of her head, and thus adorned descended to the library where Morris was
awaiting her.

He stood leaning over the fire with his back towards her, but hearing
the sweep of a skirt turned round, and as his eyes fell upon her,
started a little. Never till he saw her thus had he known how beautiful
Stella was at times. Quite without design his eyes betrayed his thought,
but with his lips he