engagement, the penitence that had led to a renewal of the bonds,
she concealed from him; but he learned of the days of study and
of quiet work in the shaded corners of her father's library, and
of those gayer days and evenings when the figure of the young
ascetic had seemed to the girl to have a peculiar saving grace,
standing in stern contrast to the social background of her life.

He thanked her, when she had finished, and he watched her, with
her background of misty blue distance, sitting where the shadow
of the ilexes brought out the color of her scarlet lips and deep
gray eyes.

"Daphne," he said presently, "you have told me much about this
man, but you have not told me that you love him. You do not
speak of him as a woman speaks of the man who makes her world for
her. You defend him, you explain him, you plead his cause, and it
must be that you are pleading it with yourself, for I have
brought no charge, that you must defend him to me. Do you love
him?"

She did not answer.

"Look at me!" he insisted. Her troubled eyes turned toward his,
but dared not stay, and the lashes fell again.

"Do not commit the crime of marrying a man you do not love," he
pleaded.

"But," said the girl slowly, "even if I gave him up I might not
care for you."