presently, glancing at the brilliant windows.

"Yes, we have a number of friends staying with us. Will you go in and
see them? There are several whom you know."

"Thank you,--not to-night; I am not in the mood. And I have a good deal
to say to you, Juanita, that deeply concerns us both."

"Very well," I replied; "you had better tell me at once."

We walked on to the old garden-chair, and sat down as we had done that
memorable night. We were both silent,--I from disappointment and
apprehension. He, I suppose, was collecting himself for what he had to
say.

"Juanita," he spoke at last, taking my hand in his, "I do not know how
you will receive what I am about to tell you. But this I wish you to
promise me: that you will believe I speak for our best happiness,
--yours as well as mine."

"Go on," was all my reply.

"A year ago," he continued, "we sat here as we do now, and, spite of
doubts and misgivings and a broken resolution, I was happier than I
shall ever be again. I had loved you from the first moment I saw you,
with a passion such as I shall never feel for any other woman. But I
knew that we were both poor; I knew that marriage in our circumstances
could only be disastrous. It would wear out your youth in servile
cares; it would cripple my energies; it might even, after a time,
change our love to disgust and aversion. And so, though I believed