r, and a silence fell between us. The
silence was intolerable to me. I was standing beside her chair, and I
cannot explain just what I felt in looking down at her. I know that the
very outline of her figure and the loose hair of her head seemed at once
intimately familiar and inexpressibly sacred and beautiful to me.
Looking down upon them caused a kind of mist to rise before my eyes. It
was as though I feared to lose possession of my faculties. That must
end, I felt, or an end would come to all reserve and loyalty to John
Crondall. And yet--yet something in the curve of her cheek--she was
looking down--held me, drew me out of myself, as it might be into a
tranced state in which a man is moved to contempt of all risks.

"Dear, I loved you, even then," I said; "but then I thought you free."

"So I was." She did not look at me, and her voice was very low; but
there was some quality in it which thrilled me through and through, as I
stood at her side.

"But now, of course, I know---- But why have you never told me,
Constance?"

"I am just as free now as then, Dick."

"Why, Constance! But, John Crondall?"

"He is my friend, just as he is yours."

"But I--but he----"

"Dick, I asked him if I might tell you, and he said, yes. John asked me
to marry him, and when I said I couldn't, he asked me to wait till our
work was done, and let him ask me again. Can't you see, Dick, how hard
it was for me? And John is--he is such a splendid man. I could not deny
him, and--that was when you came into the room--don't you
remember--Dick?"

The mist was thickening about me; it seemed my mind swam in clouds. I
only said: "Yes?"

"Oh, Dick, I am ashamed! You know how I respect him--how I like him. He
did ask me again, before he went to America."

"And now--now, you----"

"It hurt dreadfully; but I had to say no, because----"

And there she stopped. She was not engaged to John Crondall. She had
refused him--refused John Crondall! Yet I knew how high he stood in her
eyes. Could it be that there was some one else--some one in Africa? The
suggestion spelled panic. It seemed to me that I must know--that I could
not bear to leave her without knowing.

"Forgive me, Constance," I said, "but is there some one else who--is
there some one else?" To see into her dear face, I dropped on one knee
beside her chair.

"I--I thought there was," she said very sweetly. And as she spoke she
raised her head, and I saw her beautiful eyes, through t