Geoffrey murmured something, he hardly knew what. The little lady
hurried on. "It is not that I have any sympathy with--I never liked
the object--not at all, I assure you, Doctor Strong. But her heart
was fixed, and she had had every reason to suppose herself--it has
been a terrible blow to her. Renunciation--in youth--is a hard thing,
my dear young friend, a very hard thing."

She pressed his hand, and hurried away with her scissors, giving one
backward look to make sure that the lamp showed no aspect that did
not shine with the last touch of brilliancy.

Geoffrey Strong went down into the garden--he had not been there
since the day of the sobbing--and paced about, never thinking of the
pipe in his pocket. He found himself talking to the blue larkspur.
"Beast!" was what he called this beautiful plant. "Dolt! ass!
inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you--" here he recovered his
silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one
path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian
who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him,
and then--either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in
revolt, or--just as likely--that kind of man would do anything--gone
off and left her. His picture revealed a smart-looking person with
black hair and a waxed moustache, and complexion of feminine red and
white (Geoffrey called it beef and suet).

"The extraordinary thing is, what women see in such a fellow!" he
told the syringa. The syringa drooped, and looked sympathetic. The
hammock was hanging there still--poor little thing! Geoffrey did not
mean the hammock. He stood looking at the place, and winced as the
sobs struck his ear again; memory's ear this time, but that was