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 "To skate?" inquired Ellen.

Clarence coughed nervously. "I don't mean that," he said. "I mean in another way."

Ellen, halting abruptly, seated herself on a rock. "In what way?" she asked. "I'll help you if I can."

For a time Clarence did not reply. In the distance, the faint whirring sound of the other skaters had grown gradually less and less distinct as one by one they withdrew from the ice to turn their feet homeward toward the Town. At last he said, "I oughtn't to speak to you, but I thought you might understand . . . being a woman."

It was the first time any one had ever called her a woman, and, despite all her hard independence, it flattered her. She leaned forward a little and said, "Maybe I will . . . I don't know until you tell me what it is."

And then Clarence blurted out the truth. "It's about May. . . . I don't want to marry her!"

Ellen laughed suddenly in a mocking fashion. "Well," she said, "do you have to? Have you asked her to? There's no law to make you do it."

At this speech Clarence blushed, and to cover his embarrassment, he bent his head and started once more to rub his ears, so that when he spoke again it was without looking at her. "It isn't that . . . I haven't asked her. But I'm in a bad position. You see, I promised her father that I'd ask her to-day. . . . I didn't want to. I really didn't. I had meant to once, but I changed my mind. . . . I can't explain that. It was her father that forced the promise out of me."

There was no doubt of his misery. Even to Ellen it must have been clear that he felt cornered, trapped, like some mild and inoffensive animal. He was such a nice young man.

Again Ellen laughed scornfully. "It's what old man Seton would do . . . the old skinflint!"

In the darkness beyond the little ring of flame the shadows