She stood staring at him, as in terror, suddenly penetrated by a dismay
that sapped her strength, and she leaned heavily against the fireplace,
clutching the mantel-shelf.

"Don't!" she pleaded. "Please don't--I can't."

"You can't!... Perhaps, after a while, you may come to feel differently
--I didn't mean to startle you," she heard him reply gently. This
humility, in him, was unbearable.

"Oh, it isn't that--it isn't that! If I could, I'd be willing to serve
you all my life--I wouldn't ask for anything more. I never thought that
this would happen. I oughtn't to have stayed in Silliston."

"You didn't suspect that I loved you?"

"How could I? Oh, I might have loved you, if I'd been fortunate--if I'd
deserved it. But I never thought, I always looked up to you--you are so
far above me!" She lifted her face to him in agony. "I'm sorry--I'm sorry
for you--I'll never forgive myself!"

"It's--some one else?" he asked.

"I was--going to be married to--to Mr. Ditmar," she said slowly,
despairingly.

"But even then--" Insall began.

"You don't understand!" she cried. "What will you think of me?--Mrs.
Maturin was to have told you, after I'd gone. It's--it's the same as if I
were married to him--only worse."

"Worse!" Insall repeated uncomprehendingly.... And then she was aware
that he had left her side. He was standing by the window.

A thrush began to sing in the maple. She stole silently toward the door,
and paused to look back at him, once to meet his glance. He had turned.

"I can't--I can't let you go like this!" she heard him say, but she fled
from him, out of the gate and toward the Common....

When Janet appeared, Augusta Maturin was in her garden. With an instant
perception that something was wrong, she went to the girl and led her to
the sofa in the library. There the confession was made.

"I never guessed it," Janet sobbed. "Oh, Mrs. Maturin, you'll believe
me--won't you?"

"Of course I believe you, Janet," Augusta Maturity replied, trying to
hide her pity, her own profound concern and perplexity. "I didn't suspect
it either. If I had--"

"You wouldn't have brought me here, you wouldn't have asked me to stay
with you. But I was to blame, I oughtn't to have stayed, I knew all along
that something would happen--something terrible that I hadn't any right
to stay."

"Who could have foreseen it!" her friend exclaimed helplessly. "Brooks
isn't like any other man I've ever known--one can never tell what