if you have given me my final answer,
if I must take it as such, then it must be
good-bye, Daisy. I shall leave the
neighbourhood. If I were able I would stay
near you, to watch over you at a distance
(rather an Irish proceeding, but you know
what I mean), but I am not able for that.
I should not be able to keep away from
you. I should be always annoying you."

"You never do annoy me. Except
when—"

"Except when I ask you to be my wife.
I should never be able to see you without
asking you, so I should be always annoying
you. Besides, Daisy, there are other things
I am bound to consider for you. This is a
wicked and scandal-loving world. You
live alone now, you have lost the protection
of your poor cousin's presence. You live
alone, and you are a young and pretty
single woman. If you won't have me for
your husband, you can't have me for your
friend."

Her cheeks burnt with hot colour; she
answered him very meekly, " Very well,
Kenneth, it must, of course, be as you think
best."

If he had known the blank sense of
desolation that fell upon her!

"Very well, Daisy," he mocked her
angrily. " I've already pleaded, argued,
and threatened as much as I can. I did
think you cared enough for me to set aside
your cold-hearted, morbid, old-maidish
scruples. As it is not so, this evening's
good-night had better be good-bye."

"Very well, Kenneth. Good-night
good-bye."

"You wretched little unfeeling creature.
What on earth could make me care for you
as I always have done, as I always shall
do?"

"What, indeed! I have often wondered."

"Good-night, Daisy, not good-bye. I
think I will see you once more."

"Good-night, Kenneth. I am glad you
will see me once more."

He went away without touching her
hand. She listened to his step along the
gravel, she heard the garden-gate swing to,
and latch itself after him, and then—

First she sat some moments with clasped
hands, gazing straight out into the desolation
of her life; then she laid her head on
the table and cried as if she would cry that
desolate life away. For how long she did
not know.' She was presently startled by
a light touch on her hair. Then a voice
said:

"Daisy! my poor little crushed flower!
Have I hurt you so much? Did I tease
you so cruelly? But you were cruel, too,
Daisy."

She laid her cheek against his hand, and
then she kissed his hand. She tried to
speak, but a fresh burst of sobs choked
back the words. He spoke soothingly and
fondly. Once more she struggled to say
something.

"It is that I—I—Oh, I am not what
you think me! I— " Again the " climbing
sorrow" in her throat made speech
impossible, and what she had spoken had
been barely audible. There came one
despairing effort: " If only I were dead, and
you knew all!" Then she laid her head
down again and kept still.

"My poor Daisy! My poor Daisy!" A
thoughtful pause. Then he said, " There
can be nothing I don't know that really
matters. Perhaps I can guess at a good
deal, can understand how your innocent,
over-sensitive heart reproaches you with
treachery, because, perhaps, after I left you,
you were entrapped, betrayed into what
was not in harmony with the implied promise
of your last words to me. You were
a guileless child, Daisy, and could have
been no match for your adversary. I am
tempted to wish I had strangled the fellow
before he crossed your path. I don't say
that there is not much that painfully
perplexes me. That you believed you loved
him I can understand: few women could
resist him, but that your love for him should
so long linger that—"

"My love for him!" As she looked up
now, fiercely and suddenly, the passion of
her face startled him. " My love for him
is as fresh in my heart as the day I lost
him. Now you know that, Kenneth, you
will leave me in peace. He was a liar and
a treacherous coward, I know; he was a
murderer, I believe. Is a woman who loved
a liar, a treacherous coward, a murderer,
fit to be loved by you?"

"This is very wild talking, Daisy. This
is the madness not of love, but of hate."

"Who can tell what it is! Only God.
Madness! didn't you know I was mad.
Mad, more or less, ever since—Wattie
died. May not that stand between us,
Kenneth? Would you like a mad wife?"

"If I thought it true, Daisy, I would at
once possess myself of you. You should
marry me to-morrow: that you might
need no other keeper. I would deny your
right to have a will about it, if I believed
you mad."

"Is there nothing will frighten you from