and I--I knew we must meet sooner or later--that it could not be
put off forever, and so I thought we might as well get over it here as
anywhere else!"

Neither of us has thought of sitting down. He is speaking with rapid,
low emotion, and I stand stupidly listening.

"I suppose so," I answer lazily. I cannot for the life of me help it,
friends. I am back in Brindley Wood. He has come a few steps nearer me.
His voice is always low, but now it is almost a whisper in which he is
so rapidly, pantingly speaking.

"I shall most likely not have another opportunity, probably we shall not
be alone again, and I _must_ hear, I _must_ know--have you forgiven me?"

As he speaks, the recollection of all the ill he has done me, of my lost
self-respect, my alienated Roger, my faded life, pass before my mind.

"_That_ I have not!" reply I, looking full at him, and speaking with a
distinct and heavy emphasis of resentment and aversion, "and, by God's
help, I never will!"

"You will _not_!" he cries, starting back with an expression of the
utmost anger and discomfiture. "You will _not_! you will carry vengeance
for one mad minute through a whole life! It is _impossible! impossible!_
if _you_ are so unforgiving, how do you expect God to forgive you your
sins?"

I shrug my shoulders with a sort of despairing contempt. God has seemed
to me but dim of late.

"He may forgive them or leave them unforgiven as He sees best; but--_I
will never forgive you!_"

"What!" he cries, his face growing even more ash-white than it was
before, and his voice quivering with a passionate anger; "not for
_Barbara's_ sake?"

I shudder. I hate to hear him pronounce her name.

"No," say I, steadily, "not for Barbara's sake!"

"You will have to," he cries violently; "it is nonsense! think of the
close connection, of the _relationship_ that there will be between us!
think of the remarks you will excite! you will defeat your own object!"

"I will excite no remark!" I reply resolutely. "I will be quite civil to
you! I will say 'good-morning' and 'good-evening' to you; if you ask me
a question I will answer it; but--I will _never_ forgive you!"

We are standing, as I before observed, close together, and are so
wholly occupied--voices, eyes, and ears--with each other, that we do not
perceive the approach of two hitherto unseen people who are coming
dawdling and chatting up the conservatory that opens out of the room;
two people that I suppose have been