I cannot tell you the misery you have put
into my heart."

"It is out of my own sorrow I have given you to drink," said she,
bitterly. "You are a man, and have a man's career before you, with all
its changeful chances of good or evil; I, as a woman, must trust my
hazard of happiness to a home, and very soon I shall have none."

He tried to speak, but a sense of choking stopped him, and thus, without
a word on either side, they walked along several minutes.

"May," said he, at last, "do you remember the line of the poet,--

"'Death and absence differ but in name'?"

"I never heard it before; but why do you ask me?"

"I was just thinking that in parting moments like this, as on a
death-bed, one dares to speak of things which from some sense of shame
one had never dared to touch on before. Now, I want to carry away with
me over the seas the thought that your lot in life is assured, and your
happiness, so far as any one's can be, provided for. To know this,
I must force a confidence which you may not wish to accord me; but
bethink you, dear May, that you will never see me more. Will you tell me
if I ask about _him?_"

"About whom?" asked she, in unfeigned astonishment, for never were her
thoughts less directed to Alfred Lay ton.

"May," said he, almost angrily, "refuse me if you will, but let there be
no deceit between us. I spoke of Layton."

"Ask what you please, and I will answer you," said she, boldly.

"He is your lover, is he not? You have engaged yourself to him?"

"No."

"It is the same thing. You are to be his wife, when this, that, or
t'other happens?"

"No."

"In a word, if there be no compact, there is an understanding between
you?"

"Once more, no!" said she, in the same firm voice.

"Will you deny that you have received letters from him, and have written
to him again?"

An angry flush covered the girl's cheek, and her lip trembled. For an
instant it seemed as if an indignant answer would break from her; but
she repressed the impulse, and coolly said, "There is no need to deny
it. I have done both."

"I knew it,--I knew it!" cried he, in a bitter exultation. "You might
have dealt more frankly with me, or might have said, 'I am in no wise
accountable to _you_, I recognize no right in you to question me.' Had
you done this, May, it would have been a warning to me; but to say,
'Ask me freely, I will tell you everything,'--was this fair, was this
honest, was it true-hearted?"

"And ye