“There are worse marriages,” Haward said at last.  Rising from the log, he moved to the side of the kneeling figure.  “Let the violets rest, Evelyn, while we reason together.  You are too clear-eyed.  Since they offend you, I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in which neither of us believes.  What if this tinted dream of love does not exist for us?  What if we are only friends—­dear and old friends”—­

He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up beside him.  “Cannot we marry and still be friends?” he demanded, with something like laughter in his eyes.  “My dear, I would strive to make you happy; and happiness is as often found in that temperate land where we would dwell as in Love’s flaming climate.”  He smiled and tried to find her eyes, downcast and hidden in the shadow of her hat.  “This is no flowery wooing such as women love,” he said; “but then you are like no other woman.  Always the truth was best with you.”

Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raising her head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips.

“The truth!” she said slowly.  “Always the truth was best!  Well, then, take the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone!  You have been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so, too?  I will not marry you, because—­because”—­The crimson flowed over her face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before.  She put her hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark with pain, met his.  “Had you loved me,” she said proudly and quietly, “I had been happy.”

[Illustration:  “HAD YOU LOVED ME—­I HAD BEEN HAPPY”]

Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny earth.  The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet the forest seemed more quiet than death.  “I could not guess,” he said, speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground.  “I have spoken like a brute.  I beg your pardon.”

“You might have known! you might have guessed!” she cried, with passion.  “But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deep into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant.  Oh, a very temperate land!  I think that others less wise than you may also be less blind.  Never speak to me of this day!  Let it die as these blooms are dying in this hot sunshine!  Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father.  I have gathered flowers enough.”

Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight, and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree.  The white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like in its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume then most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealed neck and bosom was drawn a long and