reluctance to give pain, " Do you"—he was
going to say—"love any one else?" But it
seemed as if this question would be an insult
to the pure serenity of those eyes. "Forgive
me! I have been too abrupt. I am
punished. Only let me hope. Give me the poor
comfort of telling me you have never seen
any one whom you could—" Again a
pause. He could not end his sentence.
Margaret reproached herself acutely as the cause
of his distress.

"Ah! if you had but never got this fancy
into your head! It was such a pleasure to
think of you as a friend."

"But I may hope, may I not, Margaret,
that some time you will think of me as a
lover? Not yet,—I see there is no hurry—
but some time—"

She was silent for a minute or two, trying
to discover the truth as it was in her own
heart, before replying; then she said:

"I have never thought of—you, but as a
friend. I like to think of you so; but I am
sure I could never think of you as anything
else. Pray, let us both forget that all this"
("disagreeable," she was going to say, but
stopped short) "conversation has taken
place."

He paused before he replied. Then, in his
habitual coldness of tone, he answered:

"Of course, as your feelings are so
decided, and as this conversation has been so
evidently unpleasant to you, it had better not
be remembered. That is all very fine in
theory, that plan of forgetting whatever is
painful, but it will be somewhat difficult for
me, at least, to carry it into execution."

"You are vexed," said she, sadly; "yet
how can I help it?"

She looked so truly grieved as she said
this, that he struggled for a moment with his
real disappointment, and then answered more
cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in
his tone:

"You should make allowances for the
mortification, not only of a lover, Margaret, but
of a man not given to romance in general—
prudent, worldly, as some people call me—
who has been carried out of his usual habits
by the force of a passion—well, we will say
no more of that: but in the one outlet which
he has formed for the deeper and better
feelings of his nature, he meets with rejection
and repulse. I shall have to console myself
with scorning my own folly. A struggling
barrister to think of matrimony!"

Margaret could not answer this. The
whole tone of it annoyed her. It seemed to
touch on and call out all the points of difference
which had often repelled her in him;
while yet he was the pleasantest man, the
most sympathising friend, the person of all
others who understood her best in Harley
Street. She felt a tinge of contempt mingle
itself with her pain at having refused him.
Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain.
It was well that, having made the round of
the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr
Hale, whose whereabouts had been quite
forgotten by them. He had not yet finished the
pear, which he had delicately peeled in one
long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which
he was enjoying in a delibrate manner. It
was like the story of the eastern king, who
dipped his head into a basin of water, at the
magician's command, and ere he instantly
took it out went through the experience of a
lifetime. Margaret felt stunned, and unable
to recover her self-possession enough to join
in the trivial conversation that ensued
between her father and Mr. Lennox. She was
grave, and little disposed to speak; full of
wonder when Mr. Lennox would go, and
allow her to relax into thought on the events
of the last quarter of an hour. He was
almost as anxious to take his departure as
she was for him to leave; but a few minutes
light and careless talking, carried on at
whatever effort, was a sacrifice which he
owed to his mortified vanity, or his self-respect.
He glanced from time to time at her sad and
pensive face.

"I am not so indifferent to her as she
believes," thought he to himself. "I do not
give up hope."

Before a quarter of an hour was over, he
had fallen into a way of conversing with
quiet sarcasm; speaking of life in London and
life in the country, as if he were conscious of
his second mocking self, and afraid of his own
satire. Mr. Hale was puzzled. His visitor
was a different man to what he had seen him
before at the wedding-breakfast, and at
dinner to day; a lighter, cleverer, more
worldly man, and, as such, dissonant to Mr.
Hale. It was a relief to all three when Mr.
Lennox said that he must go directly if he
meant to catch the five o'clock train. They
proceeded to the house to find Mrs. Hale, and
wish her good-bye. At the last moment,
Henry Lennox's real self broke through the
crust.

"Margaret, don't despise me; I have a
heart, notwithstanding all this good-for-
nothing way of talking. As a proof of it, I
believe I love you more than ever—if I do
not hate you—for the disdain with which you
have listened to me during this last half-hour.
Good-bye, Margaret—Margaret!"

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

HE was gone. The house was shut up for
the evening. No more deep blue skies or
crimson and amber tints. Margaret went up
to dress for the early tea, finding Dixon in a
pretty temper from the interruption which a
visitor had naturally occasioned on a busy
day. She showed it by brushing away
viciously at Margaret's hair, under pretence of
being in a great hurry to go to Mrs. Hale.
Yet, after all, Margaret had to wait a long
time in the drawing-room before her mother
came down. She sat by herself at the fire,
with unlighted candles on the table behind