“Why?”

“It is a matter which concerns others besides myself.”

“Does Mr. Converse know that you are going away?”

“I shall tell him to-night before I leave town.”

“He will not allow you to do.”

“Yes—­he will,” the young man returned, quietly.

There was a long silence.

“Coming here—­following you—­it was a mad thing for me to do,” said the girl, still striving to find explanation for her act.  “But I have had so much trouble in my own life—­I am sorry for others who are in trouble.  I want to tell you that I am sorry.”

“I understand,” he repeated.

Another period of silence followed.

“That is all,” said the girl.  “I only wanted to tell you what a grand battle you won to-day—­and then I saw your face there in the hall and I knew that you did not want praise—­you wanted somebody to say to you, ‘I’m sorry.’” She dwelt upon the word which expressed her sympathy, putting all her heart into her voice.  “And now I’ll be going,” she said, “and I hope you understand and will forgive me.”

Farr had been sitting with head against the trunk of the tree.  When he had started to rise she requested him to remain seated.  Now he stood up so quickly that she gasped.  She was plainly still less at ease when he stood and came close to her.

“Wait a moment.  You think that I am a very strange sort of man, do you not?”

She was silent.

“You need not answer—­it doesn’t need answer.  You naturally must think that.  You met me when I was a vagrant.  You have seen me selling ice from a cart-tail.  But—­I will be very frank, for this is a time which demands frankness—­you have seen me in other circumstances which have been a bit more creditable.  You do not know who I am or what to make of me.  But with all your heart and soul you know that I love you,” he declared, his tones low and tense and thrilling.  “That love has needed no words.  It has been strange love-making.  Wait!  This isn’t going to be what you think.  If I were simply going to say I love you I would have said it to you long ago—­I am not a coward—­and I had seen the one mate of all the world; I knew it when I saw you in the dust of the long highway.  And after you went on I picked a rose beside the way, and the ashes of that rose are in my pocket now.  I called you the little sister of the rose and plodded along after you, playing with a dream.  And I threw the rose away after I saw you in the woods with your lover—­and understood.  But I went back and hunted on my knees for your sister.  I didn’t intend to say any of this to you.  For it is of no use.”

“No; I am promised to Richard Dodd,” she sobbed.

“If that was all that stood between us I’d reach now and take you in my arms,” he said, with bitterness.

“It is more than a mere promise—­he owns me—­it was bargain and sale—­it’s sacrifice—­for—­But I must not tell you.”  She went to the tree and put her forehead on her crossed arms and wept with a child’s pitiful abandon.  He came close and put tender hand upon her shoulder.