from the room that night.

The moment the lad saw her his heart swelled with a sudden heat,
burning moisture leapt into his eyes, and clogged his long, boyish
lashes. He bounded up the steps--"Christie," he said, and the word
scorched his lips like audible flame.

She turned to him, and for a second stood magnetized by his
passionately wistful face; her peculiar grayish eyes seemed to
drink the very life of his unquenchable love, though the tears that
suddenly sprang into his seemed to absorb every pulse in his body
through those hungry, pleading eyes of his that had, oh! so often
been blinded by her kisses when once her whole world lay in their
blue depths.

"You will come back to me, Christie, my wife? My wife, you will let
me love you again?"

She gave a singular little gasp, and shook her head. "Don't, oh!
don't," he cried piteously. "You will come to me, dear? it is all
such a bitter mistake--I did not understand. Oh! Christie, I did not
understand, and you'll forgive me, and love me again, won't
you--won't you?"

"No," said the girl with quick, indrawn breath.

He dashed the back of his hand across his wet eyelids. His lips were
growing numb, and he bungled over the monosyllable "Why?"

"I do not like you," she answered quietly.