ty, but that happiness is a blessing of God that is given or withheld,
and we must not waver on that account. Now let me go, and you must never
again say any of these things to me."

She rises feebly, but he is still on the floor of the summer-house at
her feet. Something about her awes him; he is vain and weak and fond of
trying on emotions, he has little sense of present responsibility, but,
as he has said, he does love her, and it is perhaps the best experience
of his whole life. A weak or silly woman would have dragged him down in
spite of his worldly common-sense, but she seems to stir the manliness
within him. At this instant he could really lay down his life for her;
it is the one supreme moment of his indolent, vacillating manhood.

"I have made you still more miserable," he cries, remorsefully. "Oh,
what shall I do! Why is it that you may know a thing in secret all your
life, and yet the moment you speak of it, it is all wrong? I oughtn't
have said a word, and yet it doesn't really make anything different.
See, I haven't so much as touched your hand; you _are_ different from
other women, you are like a pure little angel shut in a niche. And I
mean to do whatever will make you happiest. If you would like me to
marry Miss Murray----"

"Oh," she sighs with a great gasp, "don't marry any woman unless you
love her!"

He rises then, though he still stands in the doorway. "Forgive me for
being such a brute," he implores. "I shall never hurt or offend you
again. I would give my right hand to see you happy. You must, you do
believe this!"

"I believe it," she says, and they look into each other's eyes. A great
crisis has come and gone, they both think, a lightning flash that has
revealed so much, and then shut again in blackness. Could she have
loved him? she wonders.

She walks slowly towards the house, and going to her room throws
herself on the lounge, pressing her throbbing temple upon the pillow.
All the wretchedness of her life seems to have culminated, the little
doubts she has thrust out or tried to overlive. Somehow she appears to
have worked a great and unwitting change in the Grandon family. Once,
when Denise was in a discursive mood, she told Violet of Mr. Wilmarth's
proposal of marriage. What if she had married _him_? Violet thinks now.
Marcia talks about her "Vulcan" with a curious pride, and he certainly
is indulgent. In that case Violet would have marred no lives.

A soft rustle comes up the stai