ur estimates of each other. That is a very common
thing; and sometimes people find out in time, and sometimes they don't.
I am sure you agree with me, Keith?"

"Oh yes, Gerty," he answered, absently.

"And then--and then--I am quite ready to confess that I may have been
mistaken about myself; and I am afraid you encouraged the mistake. You
know, I am quite sure, I am not the heroic person you tried to make me
believe I was. I have found myself out, Keith; and just in time before
making a terrible blunder. I am very glad that it is myself I have to
blame. I have got very little resolution. 'Unstable as water'--that is
the phrase: perhaps I should not like other people to apply it to me;
but I am quite ready to apply it to myself; for I know it to be true;
and it would be a great pity if any one's life were made miserable
through my fault. Of course, I thought for a time that I was a very
courageous and resolute person--you flattered me into believing it; but
I have found myself out since. Don't you understand, Keith?"

He gave a sign of assent; his silence was more embarrassing than any
protest or appeal.

"Oh, I could choose such a wife for you, Keith!--a wife worthy of you--a
woman as womanly as you are manly; and I can think of her being proud to
be your wife, and how all the people who came to your house would admire
and love her--"

He looked up in a bewildered way.

"Gerty," he said, "I don't quite know what it is you are speaking about.
You are speaking as if some strange thing had come between us; and I was
to go one way, and you another, through all the years to come. Why, that
is all nonsense! See! I can take your hand--that is the hand that gave
me the red rose. You said you loved me, then; you cannot have changed
already. I have not changed. What is there that would try to separate
us? Only words, Gerty!--a cloud of words humming round the ears and
confusing one. Oh, I have grown heart-sick of them in your letters,
Gerty; until I put the letters away altogether, and I said, 'They are no
more than the leaves of last autumn: when I see Gerty, and take her
hand, all the words will disappear then.' Your hand is not made of
words, Gerty; it is warm and kind, and gentle--it is a woman's hand. Do
you think words are able to make me let go my grasp of it? I put them
away--I do not hear any more of them. I only know that you are beside
me, Gerty; and I hold your hand!"

He was no longer the imploring lover: th