y, profoundly, stirred.

"I'm a brute," said he, presently, with an odd ring of conviction. "You
go to my head like drink sweeter than was ever brewed. I've had a hard
fight all these days to keep my hands off you...."

Carlisle raised her head and turned. Canning had expected to see her
face stained with tears, or, more probably, flaming with (at least
half-feigned) anger. His heart turned a little when he saw how still and
white she was.

"You must go now, please," she said, in rather a strained voice, not
looking towards him; and by some strange and subtle process of
association she fell into words which she had used within the hour to
another: "I don't wish to talk with you any more."

The man's handsome face flushed brightly. He said in a throbbing voice:

"I can't let you dismiss me this way. I can't endure it. Have I offended
so--"

"I can't talk with you any more now. I must ask--"

"But you won't be so cruel! If I've offended, won't you make some
allowance for my temptation? Am I a snow-man, to come so near and be
unmoved? Am I to be a monk, because I live under sentence in a
monastery? You ..."

To do him justice, he did not look in the least like either of these
things. However, Carlisle missed his look. Standing with lowered eyes,
she said again, colorlessly:

"Please leave me now--I beg you--"

"But I can't leave you this way!" said Canning. "It's impossible! You
misjudge me so--"

"Then I must leave you," said Carlisle; and started to go past him.

But Canning blocked her way, his face, troubled with deep concern, more
handsome and winning than she had ever seen it. Only she still did not
see it. He thought, with a whirling mind, that this was carrying the
thing rather too far; but he saw with chagrin and a curious inner tumult
the entire uselessness of more argument to-night.

"I am heartbroken," he said, a little stiffly, "that I've brought you
somehow to think so hardly of me. Your thought does a great wrong to
the--respect and deep devotion I feel and shall feel for you." He
wobbled the least bit over these words, as if himself conscious of a
certain inadequacy, but went on with his usual masculine decisiveness:
"Now it must of course be as you wish. But to-morrow I shall make you
understand me better."

He picked up hat, coat, and stick, defeated, yet not spoiled of his
air. But as he turned to go, and looked at her for his formal bow, he
was all at once aware that she wore a wholly