“But, then, I ought to have refused; it was my place.  It would have saved everything.”

“You wanted to,” he said, “and you yielded to oblige Katie.”

She looked relieved at his answer.  It surprised him; he wondered that he had remembered her hesitation.

“You will do this thing?” she persisted.  “You see it is your duty.”

“Do you know the reason you are so anxious to have me do it?” he asked, the momentary softening of his face gone.  “It’s out of no love for Katie, or friendliness to me.”

“No,” she said to his last statement, and added, “Yes, I know; I’ve seen it.”

“What is it?”

“I suppose,” she said, humbly, “that it’s my pride.

“Yes,” he cried, “that’s what it is—­your pride.  Well, I have my pride, too.  I’ll take your money, when you love me—­when it’s the gift of your love, as I said—­no sooner; I shall have to do without it this year, I’m afraid.”

Her eyes swept him from head to foot in an indignant glance.  Then she turned and walked away as if disdaining further speech.  He bowed in silence as he opened the door for her, looking at her with a mocking smile, and even as he did so taking in every line of her graceful figure, the pose of her head, and the flush upon her face.  In answer to the taunt she did speak one sentence under her breath, but he caught it:—­

“You are not the only one,” she said.

When he had closed the door after her he walked slowly the length of the room, and, standing by the window, in another moment saw her pass by on her way to the shore where she had learned that the party had gone.  If they were already sailing it was no matter; she could wait for them there, or come back; but they might not have started, and to put any part of sea and land between herself and Archdale would be a joy to her.

Archdale watched her until she disappeared.

“And I called myself proud,” he muttered.  He stood lost in revery, living the scene over again.  “What eyes!” he thought; “they’re as unconscious as a child’s, but such power as they have; they call out a man’s best, and I met her with my worst.  I never even told her she was generous.  She meant to be kind when she humiliated me so.”  And then he thought that she deserved a better fate than to be bound to him whose heart was with Katie, and realized that Elizabeth was not at all the kind of woman whom he should choose to set his love upon.  Yet he smiled scornfully at himself for the eager start with which he had cried out that if she were roused she could be magnificent.  A magnificent woman was not in his line, and if it proved that she was his wife, she would go through the world a sleeping princess, he said to himself, unless he should go off to the wars and get shot.  Perhaps that would be the best way out of the difficulty, he thought, and would leave her free.  At the moment Edmonson’s face rose before him, and he frowned as he wondered what