g risen, I
again face him--"even if I had wanted to flirt with some one, why on
earth should I have chosen _you_?" (eying him with scornful slowness,
from his wide-awake to his shooting-boots), "_you_, who never even
_amused_ me in the least! Often when I have been talking to you, I have
yawned till the tears came into my eyes! I have been afraid that you
would notice it. If I had known" (speaking with great bitterness), "I
should have taken less pains with my manners."

He does not answer a word. What answer _can_ he make? He still stands
under the wintry tree, white to lividness; drops of cold sweat stand on
his brows; and his fine nostrils dilate and contract, dilate and
contract, in an agony of anger and shame.

"What _could_ have put such an idea into your head?" cry I, clasping my
hands, while the tears rain down my cheeks, as--my thoughts again flying
to Barbara--I fall from contempt and scorn to the sharpest reproach.
"Who would have thought of such a thing? when there are so many better
and prettier people who, for all I know, might have liked you. What
wicked perversity made you fix upon _me_ who, even if I had not belonged
to any one else, could never, _never_ have fancied you!"

"Is that true?" he says, in a harsh, rough whisper; "are you sure that
you are not deceiving yourself? are you sure that under all your rude
words you are not nearer loving me than you think?--that it is not
that--with that barrier between us--you cannot reconcile it to your
conscience--"

"Quite, _quite_ sure!" interrupt I, with passionate emphasis, looking
back unflinchingly into the angry depths of his eyes, "it has nothing to
say to conscience! it has nothing to say to the _wrongness_ of it"
(crimsoning as I speak). "If it were quite right--if it were my
_duty_--if it were the only way to save myself from _hanging_" (reaching
after an ever higher and higher climax), "I _never_, NEVER could say
that I was fond of you! I do not see what there is to be fond of _in_
you! before God, I do not!"

"There!" he says, hoarsely stretching out his hand, as if to ward off a
blow, "that will do!--stop!--you will never outdo that!"

A moment's pause.

Down in the loneliness of this dell, the twilight is creeping quickly
on: when once it begins it tarries not. Out in the open country I dare
say that it is still broad daylight; but here, the hues of the moss
carpet are growing duller, and the brook is darkening. In a sudden
panic, I hast