The older man looked at him with almost contemptuous incredulity.
"My dear fellow, what is the use of denying facts? You can't make
black white, can you? Day before yesterday you loved this--this,"
he seemed to search for some epithet; glanced at David, and said,
almost meekly: "girl. Day before yesterday she expected to marry
you. To-day she is the wife of another man. Have you committed
any crime in the last three days which justifies that?"

"Yes," David said, in a smothered voice, "I have." Then he handed
back to the shamed and angry man the poor, pitiful little letter.
"Don't you see? She says, 'David didn't want'"--he broke off,
unable to speak. A moment later he added, "'E. _F_.' She
isn't used to the--the other, yet," he said, again with that
bewildered look.

But Elizabeth's uncle was too absorbed in his own humiliation to
see confession in that tragic initial. "What is that nonsense
about your not wanting her?"

"She thought so. She had reason to think so."

"You had better explain yourself, David."

"She wrote to me," David said, after a pause; "she told me she
would have that money of hers on her birthday. She said we could
be married then." He reddened to his temples. "She asked me to
marry her that day; _asked_ me, you understand." He turned
on his heel and went over to the window; he stood there for some
minutes with his back to Robert Ferguson. The green door in the