“I know what you are going to say,” her lip curling in scorn, “and I want to help you forget my misfortune.  Perhaps you will when I tell you that my feeling for you is dying a natural death, and it is dying because I no longer respect you as I did.”

“Oh, God! don’t—­don’t say that, Harriet!”

“But I’m only telling you the truth.  I would not marry you—­not if you were the only man on earth—­not if you were worth your weight in gold—­not if you got down on your knees and asked me a thousand times.”

“You would not, Harriet?”

“Why should I?  A girl wants a husband she can lean on and go to in every trouble she has.  You wouldn’t fill the bill, Mr. Westerfelt.  Good gracious, no!”

She turned back towards the hotel, and like a man with his intelligence shaken from him by a superior force, he tried to keep at her side.  In silence they reached the steps of the hotel.

“You’ll miss that hack if you don’t hurry,” she said.  “Besides, you’ve acted as if this was a pest-house ever since mother and I nursed you here and I made such a fool of myself.”

“Harriet, if you do not consent to be my wife I don’t know what I shall do.  I want you—­I want you.  I love you, I can’t do without you.  That’s God’s truth.  If I hesitated it was only because I was driven crazy with—­”

“It’s a great pity about your love,” she sneered; her eyes flashed, and she snapped her fingers in his face, her breast rising and falling in agitation.  “Sweethearts may be hard to find, and husbands, too, but I wouldn’t marry you—­you who have no more gentlemanly instincts than to blame a girl for what happened when she was a helpless little baby.”

“What—­what do you mean by that, Harriet?” he questioned, his eyes opening wide.  “I have never—­”

“You told me—­or, at least, you showed it mighty plain—­” she broke in, “that it was because I was a foundling and never knew who my real parents were that you have such a contempt for me.”

“Harriet, as God is my judge, I don’t know what you’re talking about.  You have never mentioned such a thing to me before.”

“Oh yes, I did,” she was studying his startled face curiously, “or rather you told me you knew about it—­that you had heard of it.”

“But I had never heard of it—­I never dreamed of it till this minute.  Besides that would not make a particle of difference to me.  It would only make me love you more—­it does make me love you more.”

Her face clouded over with perplexity.  Somebody was coining down the sidewalk, and she led him into the parlor.

“Why, Mr. Westerfelt,” she began again, “I—­I don’t know what to make of you.  It was one day when you were sick here, just after you asked me to burn a letter you had got.  I remember it distinctly.”

He started.  “I was not alluding to that,” he said.

“Then what were you speaking of?”