then was to break a little the force of her disappointment at his departure. But the unexpected fortune that had attended his efforts had advanced his standard of success, until nothing would now satisfy him but to pop the question and be refused.

And still, as the day approached which he had set for the desperate venture, he began to get very nervous. He thought he had a sure thing if ever a fellow had, but women were so cursedly unaccountable. Supposing she should take it into her head to accept him! No logic could take account of a woman's whimsies. Then what a pretty fix he would have got himself into, just by a foolhardy freak! But there was a strain of Norse blood in Hunt, and in spite of occasional touches of ague, the risk of the scheme had in itself a certain fascination for him. And yet he could n't help wishing he had carried out a dozen desperate devices for disgusting her with him, which at the time had seemed to him too gross to be safe from suspicion.

The trouble was that since he loved her no more he had lost the insight which love only gives into the feelings of another. Then her every touch and look and word was eloquent to his senses as to the precise state of her feeling toward him, but now he was dull and insensitive to such direct intuition. He could not longer feel, but could only argue as to how she might be minded toward him, and this it was which caused him so much trepidation, in spite of so many reasons why he should be confident of the result. Argument as to another's feelings is such a wretched substitute for the intuition of sympathy.

Finally, on the evening before the day on which he was to offer himself, the last of his stay at the Giffords', he got into such a panic that, determined to clinch the assurance of his safety, he asked her to play a game of cards, and then managed that she should see him cheat two or three times. The recollection of the cold disgust on her face as he bade her good-evening was so reassuring that he went to bed and slept like a child, in the implicit confidence that four horses could n't drag that girl into an engagement with him the next day.

It was not till the latter part of the afternoon that he could catch her alone long enough to transact his little business with her. Anticipating, or at least apprehending his design, she took the greatest pains to avoid meeting him, or to have her mother with her when she did. She would have given almost anything to escape his offer. Of course she could reject it, but fastidious persons do not like to have unpleasant objects put on their plates, even if they have not necessarily to eat them. But her special reason was that the scene would freshly bring up and emphasize the whole wretched history of her former infatuation and its miserable ending,—an experience every thought of which was full of shame and strong desire for the cleansing of forgetfulness. He finally cornered her in the parlor alone. As she saw him approaching and realized that there was no escape, she turned and faced him with her small figure drawn to its full height, compressed lips, pale face, and eyes that plainly said, "Now have it over with as soon as possible." One hand resting on the table was clenched over a book. The other, hanging by her side, tightly grasped a handkerchief.

"Do you know I 've been trying to get a chance to speak with you alone all day?" he said.

"Have you?" she replied in a perfectly inexpressive tone.

"Can't you guess what I wanted to say?"

"I 'm not good at conundrums."

"I see you will not help me," he went on, and then added quickly, "it's a short story; will you be my wife?"

As he said the words, he felt as the lion-tamer does when he puts his head in the lion's jaws. He expects to take it out again, but if the lion should take a notion—His suspense was, however, of the shortest possible duration, for instantly, like a reviving sprinkle on a fainting face, the words fell on his ear:—

"I thank you for the honor, but I 'm sure we are not suited."

Annie had conned her answer on many a sleepless pillow, and had it by heart. It came so glibly, although in such a constrained and agitated voice, that he instantly knew it must have been long cut and dried.

It was now only left for him to do a decent amount of urging, and then acquiesce with dignified melancholy and go off laughing in his sleeve. What is he thinking of to stand there gazing at her downcast face as if he were daft?

A strange thing had happened to him. The sweet familiarity of each detail in the petite figure before him was impressing his mind as never before, now that he had achieved his purpose of putting it beyond the possibility of his own possession. The little hands he had held so often in the old days, conning each curve and dimple, reckoning them more his hands than were his own, and far more dearly so; the wavy hair he had kissed so fondly and delighted to touch; the deep dark eyes under their long lashes, like forest lakes seen through environing thickets, eyes that he had found his home in through so long and happy a time,— why, they were his! Of course he had never meant to really forfeit them, to lose them, and let them go to anybody else. The idea was preposterous,—was laughable. It was indeed the first time it had occurred to him in that light. He had only thought of her as losing him; scarcely at all of himself as losing her. During the whole time he had been putting himself in her place so constantly that he had failed sufficiently to fully canvass the situation from his own point of view. Wholly absorbed in estranging her from him, he had done nothing to estrange himself from her.

It was rather with astonishment and even an appreciation of the absurd, than any serious apprehension, that he now suddenly saw how he had stultified himself, and come near doing himself a fatal injury. For knowing that her present estrangement was wholly his work, it did not occur to him but that he could undo it as easily as he had done it. A word would serve the purpose and make it all right again. Indeed, his revulsion of feeling so altered the aspect of everything that he quite forgot that any explanation at all was necessary, and, after gazing at her for a few moments while his eyes, wet with a tenderness new and deliciously sweet, roved fondly from her head to her little slipper, doating on each feature, he just put out his arms to take her with some old familiar phrase of love on his lips.

She sprang away, her eye flashing with anger.

He looked so much taken aback and discomfited that she paused in mere wonder, as she was about to rush from the room.

"Annie, what does this mean?" he stammered. "Oh, yes,—why,—my darling, don't you know,—did n't you guess,—it was all a joke,— a stupid joke? I 've just been pretending."

It was not a very lucid explanation, but she understood, though only to be plunged in greater amazement.

"But what for?" she murmured.

"I did n't know I loved you," he said slowly, as if recalling with difficulty, and from a great distance, his motives, "and I thought it was kind to cure you of your love for me by pretending to be a fool. I think I must have been crazy, don't you?" and he smiled in a dazed, deprecating way.

Her face from being very pale began to flush. First a red spot started out in either cheek; then they spread till they covered the cheeks; next her forehead took a roseate hue, and down her neck the tide of color rushed, and she stood there before him a glowing statue of outraged womanhood, while in the midst her eyes sparkled with scorn.

"You wanted to cure me," she said at last, in slow, concentrated tones, "and you have succeeded. You have insulted me as no woman was ever insulted before."

She paused as if to control herself; for her voice trembled with the last words. She shivered, and her bosom heaved once or twice convulsively. Her features quivered; scorching tears of shame rushed to her eyes, and she burst out hysterically:—

"For pity's sake