_confess_, or anything like that. Probably you thought, till you
fell in love with him, that there was no reason why you should give him
your secrets. What I mean is--oh, the difference it would make to Mr.
Hilliard, knowing that you sent him away, not because you looked down on
him as common and impossible, but because you had no _right_ to care!"

Angela stared at the earnest little face as if she were dazed, bewildered
in a dark place, and groping for light.

"I had no idea he misunderstood me so," she said slowly. "If I'd guessed
at the time, I couldn't have resisted telling him how much I loved him. I
couldn't have let him go, so wounded. But now, since no happiness can ever
come for us together, and perhaps by this time he is getting over his
first suffering, wouldn't it be better just to leave the veil of silence
down between us? I don't want to hurt him all his life long. It must make
it easier for him to forget, if he believes me a 'doll stuffed with
sawdust,' or a snob. He can't go on for long loving a poor thing like
that. And so he will be cured. Oh, though I long to send him a message--I
mustn't. I mustn't be tempted! Let him think badly of me. It's the best
and kindest thing."

"No," said Sara Wilkins, "that is not the right way; not for _him_. It
might be with a vain man. But he doesn't get over it. He doesn't stop
loving you. Only the pain is worse because he thinks you scorned him. Mrs.
May, I implore you to write him a letter. I can't take a message, because
he mustn't know I came to see you. It would spoil it all for him, I think.
Write as if it were of your own accord. Don't _explain_ in the letter.
Letters are such hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write
wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and what he must go
on suffering, for you couldn't help studying your words, and they'd be
stiff and disappointing, no matter how hard you tried to say the things
just right. Ask him to come here and let you explain in your own words why
you seemed so harsh. Only, warn him that it isn't to change your mind
about--about saying _yes_. It would be awful to rush up here happy and
hopeful, only to find out--what he'll have to find out."

"You don't understand," said Angela. "I care too much to dare see him
again. I couldn't trust myself. I----"

"Ah, but you could trust _him_. He's strong and high in his nature--like
the great redwoods."

"Yes, like the great redwoods," Angela e