 his nerves. After having so genuinely and wantonly alarmed him, has she brought him here, without any expressions of regret or remorse, simply to steep herself in a silent luxury of selfish enjoyment? After brooding resentfully on this idea for a considerable time, he translates it into speech.

"I thought that you had something to say to me?"

It seems as if her soul had gone out into the sun and April-painted champaign country, and that it is only with an effort and a sigh that she fetches it home again:

"So I have."

"And how much longer am I to wait for it?"

There is no indication of any capacity for patience in his tone.

She brings her look back from the shining morning city, and fixes it wistfully upon him.

"Are you in such a hurry to hear?"

The pathetic streak in her voice, instead of conciliating, chafes him. What is the sense of this paraphernalia of preliminaries? Why not come to the point at once? if indeed there is a point—a fact of which he begins to entertain grave doubts.

"I do not know what you call hurry," he replies drily; "I have been awaiting this mystic utterance for sixteen or seventeen hours."

Her sallow cheek takes on a pinky tinge of mortification at his accent.

"You are quite right," she answers quickly; "I have no business to keep you waiting. I meant to tell you as soon as we got here; I asked you to bring me here on purpose, only——"

"You told me that you must make the communication at some place where it would not matter if you did break down," says he, rather harshly helping her memory; "you must allow that that was not an encouraging exordium. Do you look upon this"—glancing ironically round—"as a particularly suitable place for breaking down?"

Again that pain-evidencing wave of colour flows into her face. There is such an unloving mockery in his displeased voice.

"I shall not break down," she replies, forcing herself to speak with quiet composure; "you need not be afraid that I shall. I know that yesterday I was foolish enough to say the very words you quote, but I was not quite myself then; I did not quite know what I was saying; I had only just heard it."

"It? What IT? Is this a new riddle? For Heaven's sake let us hear the answer to the first before we embark on any fresh one!"

"
