ly gazed earnestly into her face, so
that she turned her head and met his eyes.

"Please do not go yet!" he cried in a low and earnest voice that had
real entreaty in it.

"No," she answered quickly. "I am not going. But I must go soon. I
cannot stay long, for I must go home to luncheon, and I have not talked
with Bianca at all yet."

"Yes--I know--and I must be going too," he said nervously. "But if you
knew what it is to me to sit here beside you for a few minutes--" He
stopped suddenly, and the colour rushed to his face.

"In what way?" asked Veronica, with an impatient, womanly impulse to
make him speak and have done with it, in order that there might be no
more misunderstanding.

"Because--because I love you, Donna Veronica!" He turned quite white as
he found words at last. "I must say it this once, even if you never
forgive me. This is the first happy moment I have had since I saw you
the last time. I love you--let me tell you so before I die, and I shall
die happy if you will forgive me, for I have dreamed of saying it, and
longed to say it, so often. You are my whole life, and my days and
nights only have the hours of my thoughts of you to mark them."

His words came confusedly and uncontrolled, but his voice had a longing
pathetic ring in it, as of a very hopeless appeal. Veronica had been
startled at first, and her eyes were wide and girlish as she looked at
him. It was the first time that any man had ever told her that he loved
her, and for that reason it was to be memorable; but it did not seem to
be the first time. Taquisara's manly pleading and fervent voice when he
had spoken yesterday had left her ears dull to this real first time of
hearing love speeches, so that this seemed the second, and the words she
heard, after the first little shock of realizing what they were, touched
no chord that would respond.

She did not answer at first, but half unconsciously she shook her head,
as she turned from him and looked away once more. Perhaps that was the
most unkind thing she could have done; for it was so natural, and
simple, and unaffected a refusal, that he could hardly be mistaken as to
her meaning; and, after all, she had led him on to speak. She herself
was shocked at her own heartlessness a moment later, and in one of those
absurd concatenations of ideas which run through the mind at important
moments, she felt as though she had been giving a merchant an infinity
of trouble to show his wares, only