slight shrug of the
shoulders and curl of the lip contradicted her words,--yet, with a tone
of rigid determination, she added, that it was also best she should
cherish no tastes and form no associations which might distract her
imagination and further turn her heart from this virtuous resolution;
and therefore must she say farewell, firmly and finally, to the, she
doubted not, most worthy gentleman who had done her the honor to
entertain for her sentiments of such high consideration and romantic
devotion. She would not deny that his intrusion on her privacy had, at
first, startled and displeased her,--but she already accepted it as an
eccentricity of dramatic genius, a thoughtless offence, and, being, as
she trusted, at once the first and the last, pardonable. She wished him
happiness, fame, fortune,--and a very good morning! Then, with a wave
of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned
and walked proudly up the lane.

Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected
attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his
finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt
the next day, and that he would be there to see?

And Zelma did return the next day,--persuading herself that she was
only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She
argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual
resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's
presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of
his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure
by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had
lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as
though nothing had happened,--for, indeed, nothing _had_ happened that
a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a
half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old
place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning
over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every
chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous
intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last,
and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have
conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart,
and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she