came back and stood before him.

"We must undo this," she said.

"What do you mean?" He understood well enough.

"You know. We must not love each other. We must undo to-day and forget
it."

"If you can talk so lightly of forgetting, you have little to remember,"
answered Orsino almost roughly.

"You have no right to say that."

"I have the right of a man who loves you."

"The right to be unjust?"

"I am not unjust." His tone softened again. "I know what it means, to
say that I love you--it is my life, this love. I have known it a long
time. It has been on my lips to say it for weeks, and since it has been
said, it cannot be unsaid. A moment ago you told me not to doubt you. I
do not. And now you say that we must not love each other, as though we
had a choice to make--and why? Because you once made a rash promise--"

"Hush!" interrupted Maria Consuelo. "You must not--"

"I must and will. You made a promise, as though you had a right at such
a moment to dispose of all your life--I do not speak of mine--as though
you could know what the world held for you, and could renounce it all
beforehand. I tell you you had no right to make such an oath, and a vow
taken without the right to take it is no vow at all--"

"It is--it is! I cannot break it!"

"If you love me you will. But you say we are to forget. Forget! It is so
easy to say. How shall we do it?"

"I will go away--"

"If you have the heart to go away, then go. But I will follow you. The
world is very small, they say--it will not be hard for me to find you,
wherever you are."

"If I beg you--if I ask it as the only kindness, the only act of
friendship, the only proof of your love--you will not come--you will not
do that--"

"I will, if it costs your soul and mine."

"Orsino! You do not mean it--you see how unhappy I am, how I am trying
to do right, how hard it is!"

"I see that you are trying to ruin both our lives. I will not let you.
Besides, you do not mean it."

Maria Consuelo looked into his eyes and her own grew deep and dark. Then
as though she felt herself yielding, she turned away and sat down in a
chair that stood apart from the rest. Orsino followed her, and tried to
take her hand, bending down to meet her downcast glance.

"You do not mean it, Consuelo," he said earnestly. "You do not mean one
hundredth part of what you say."

She drew her fingers from his, and turned her head sideways against the
back of the chair so that she could