“Dear William,” I said, gently, “you amaze and distress me.  Such love as a sister may give to an only brother you have long had from me.  Why ask for any other?”

“‘A sister’s love!’” he cried, impatiently.  “I thought, Juanita, you were above such paltry subterfuges!  Is it as a brother I have loved you all these long and weary years?”

“Perhaps not,—­I cannot say.  At any rate,” I continued, gravely, “a sisterly affection is all I can give you now.”

“You are trifling with me, Juanita!  Cease!  It is unworthy of you.”

He seized my hand, and clasped it to his breast.  How wildly his heart beat under my touch!  I trembled from head to foot,—­but I said, in a cold voice, “You are a good actor, William!”

“You cannot look in my eyes and say you believe that charge,” he answered.

I essayed to do it,—­but my glance fell before his, so ardent, so tender.  Spite of myself, my cheeks burned with blushes.  Quietly I withdrew my hand and said, “I am to be married to John in December.”

Ah, but there was a change then!  The flush and the triumph died out of his face, as when a lamp is suddenly extinguished.  Yet there was as much indignation as grief in his voice when he said,—­

“Heaven forgive you, Juanita!  You have wilfully, cruelly deceived me!”

“Deceived you!” I replied, rising with dignity.  “Make no accusation.  If deceived you were, you have simply your own vanity, your own folly, to blame for whatever you may suffer.”

“You have listened to my love, and encouraged me to hope”——­

“Silence!  I did love you once,—­your cold heart can never guess how well, how warmly.  I would have loved on through trial and suffering forever; no one could have made me believe anything against you; nothing could have shaken my fidelity, or my faith in yours.  It was reserved for yourself to work my cure,—­for your own lips to pronounce the words that changed my love to cool contempt.”

“Oh, Juanita,” he cried, passionately, “will you always be so vindictive?  Will you forever remind me of that piece of insane folly?  Let it go,—­it was a boy’s whim, too silly to remember.”

“You were no boy then,” I answered.  “You had a mature prudence,—­a careful thoughtfulness for self.  Or if otherwise, in your case the child was indeed father to the man.”

“Your love is dead, then, I suppose?” he questioned, with a bitter smile.

I handed him the book I had been reading.  It was marked at these words:  “Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love, cripples even natural affection; without esteem, true love cannot exist.”

William raised his head with an air of proud defiance.  “And in what sense,” he asked, “do such words apply to me?”

“You are strangely obtuse,” I said.  “You see no trace of yourself in that passage—­no trace of meanness in the man who cast off the penniless orphan, with her whole heart full of love for him, yet pleads so warmly with the rich heiress, when he knows she is pledged to another?”