h him, but of which he had lost the key.

A single yellow leaf, crisped and hollowed to a fairy boat, came sailing
on an imperceptible current of air to rest on Rachel's knee.

"I was angry at first," she said, her voice falling across the silence
like another leaf. "And then, after a time, I forgave you. And later
still, much later, I found out that you had never injured me--that I had
nothing to forgive."

He did not understand, and as he did not understand he explained
volubly--for here he felt he was on sure ground--that, on the contrary,
she had much to forgive, that he had acted like an infernal blackguard,
that men were coarse brutes, not fit to kiss a good woman's
shoe-latchet, etc., etc. He identified his conduct with that of the
whole sex, without alluding to it as that of the individual Tristram. He
made it clear that he did not claim to have behaved better than most
men.

Rachel listened attentively. "And I actually loved him," she said to
herself.

"But the divine quality of woman is her power of forgiving. Her love
raises a man, transfigures him, ennobles his whole life," etc., etc.

"My love did not appear to have quite that effect upon you at the time,"
said Rachel, regretting the words the moment they were spoken.

Mr. Tristram felt relieved. Here at last; was the reproach he had been
expecting.

He assured her she did well to be angry. He accused himself once more.
He denounced the accursed morals of the day, above which he ought to
have risen, the morals, if she did but know it, of all unmarried men.

"That is a hit at Mr. Scarlett," she said, scornfully, to herself, and
then her cheek blanched as she remembered that Hugh was not exempt,
after all. She became suddenly tired, impatient; but she waited quietly
for the inevitable proposal.

Mr. Tristram, who had the gift of emphatic and facile utterance, which
the conventional consider to be the sign-manual of genius, had become so
entangled in the morals of the age that it took him some time to
extricate himself from the subject before he could pass on to plead, in
an impassioned manner, the cause of the man, unworthy though he might
be, who had long loved her, loved her now, and would always love her, in
this world and the next.

It was the longest proposal Rachel had ever had, and she had had many.
But if the proposal was long, the refusal was longer. Rachel, who had a
good memory, led up to it by opining that the artistic life made great