“Does my father know what your trouble is?” asked Marietta suddenly.

“No!  That is—­I have no trouble, I assure you.  I am of a melancholy nature.”

“I am glad it has nothing to do with the secrets,” said the young girl, quietly ignoring the last part of his speech.  “If it had, I could not help you at all.  Could I?”

That morning it had seemed an easy thing to wait even two years before giving him a sign, before dropping in his path the rose which she would not ask of him again.  The minutes seemed years now.  For she knew well enough what his trouble was, since yesterday; he loved her, and he thought it infinitely impossible, in his modesty, that she should ever stoop to him.  After she had spoken, she looked at him with half-closed eyes for a while, but he stared stonily at the trunk of the tree beside his hand.  Gradually, as she gazed, her lids opened wider, and the morning sunlight sparkled in the deep blue, and her fresh lips parted.  Before she was aware of it he was looking at her with a strange expression she had never seen.  Then she faintly blushed and looked down at her beads once more.  She felt as if she had told him that she loved him.  But he had not understood.  He had only seen the transfiguration of her face, and it had been for a moment as he had never seen it before.  Again his heart sank suddenly, and he uttered a little sound that was more than a sigh and less than a groan.

“There are remedies for almost every kind of pain,” said Marietta wisely, as she threaded several beads.

“Give me one for mine,” he cried almost bitterly.  “Bid that which is to cease from being, and that to be which is not earthly possible!  Turn the world back, and undo truth, and make it all a dream!  Then I shall find the remedy and forget that it was needed.”

“There are magicians who pretend to do such things,” she answered softly.

“I would there were!” he sighed.

“But those who come to them for help tell all, else the magician has no power.  Would you call a physician, if you were ill, and tell him that the pain you felt was in your head, if it was really—­in your heart?”

She had paused an instant before speaking the last words, and they came with a little effort.

“How could the physician cure you, if you would not tell him the truth?” she asked, as he said nothing.  “How can the wizard work miracles for you, unless he knows what miracle you ask?  How can your best friend help you if—­if she does not know what help you need?”

Still he was silent, leaning against the tree, with bent head.  The pain was growing worse, and harder to bear.  She spoke so softly and kindly that it would have been easy to tell her the truth, he thought, for though she could never love him, she would understand, and would forgive him.  He had not dreamed that friendship could be so kind.

“Am I right?” she asked, after a pause.