light and exchange
platitudes.

'Tom,' she said, suddenly resolving to break the ice, 'we have
been much too good friends to behave in this way to each other. If
something has come between us, I think you ought to tell me--don't
you?'

'I wish I could,' Lushington answered, after a moment's hesitation.

'If you know, you can,' said Margaret, taking the upper hand and
meaning to keep it.

'That does not quite follow.'

'Oh yes, it does,' retorted Margaret energetically. 'I'll tell you
why. If it's anything on your side, it's not fair and honest to keep
it from me after writing to me as you have written all winter. But if
it's the other way, there's nothing you can possibly know about me
which you cannot tell me, and if you think there is, then some one has
been telling you what is not true.'

'It's nothing against you; I assure you it's not.'

'Then there is a woman in the case. Why should you not say so frankly?
We are not bound to each other in any way, I'm sure. I believe I once
asked you to marry me, and you refused!' She laughed rather sharply.
'That does not constitute an engagement!'

'You put the point rather brutally, I think,' said Lushington.

'Perhaps, but isn't it quite true? It was not said in so many words,
but you knew I meant it, and but for a quixotic scruple of yours we
should have been married. I remember asking you what we were making
ourselves miserable about, since we both cared so much. It was at
Versailles, the last time we walked together, and we had stopped, and
I was digging little round holes in the road with my parasol. I'm not
going to ask you again to marry me, so there is no reason in the world
why you should behave differently to me if you have fallen in love
with some one else.'

'I'm not in love with any one,' said Lushington sharply.

'Then something you have heard about me has changed you in spite of
what you say, and I have a right to know what it is, because I've done
nothing I'm ashamed of.'

'I've not heard a word against you,' he answered, almost angrily. 'Why
do you imagine such things?'

'Because I'm honest enough to own that your friendship has meant a
great deal to me, even at a distance; and as I see that it has broken
its neck at some fence or other, I'm natural enough to ask what the
jump was like!'

He would not answer. He only looked at her suddenly for an instant,
with a slight pinching of the lids, and his blue eyes glittered a
little; then he turn