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 ness of his passion, yet remembering vaguely that she had read of such things in books.

"You will come to-morrow, darling—you will have trust in me?"

"You are mad, Alec. You don't know what you are saying. It would be absurd."

"It's because you don't understand how I love you, that you say that," he broke out fiercely. "You can't understand—you can't understand.

"Yes, I can," she protested, instinctively eager to vie with his display of emotion.

"Then say you will come—promise it, promise it," he cried; and his features were all distorted by suspense.

But at this climax of his insistance, she lost consciousness of her own attitude. She seemed suddenly to see all that clumsiness which had made her refuse him before.

"It's altogether ridiculous," she answered shortly.

He recoiled from her: he seemed to stiffen a little all over; and she felt rising impatience at his grotesque denseness in persisting.

"You say it's altogether ridiculous?" he repeated after her slowly.

"Yes, of course it's ridiculous," she repeated with uneasy emphasis. "I'm very sorry you should mind—feel it so—but it isn't my fault."

"Why did you say than that before God you loved me, when you came that day?" he burst out with concentrated bitterness.

"Because I thought you were dying." The bald statement of the truth sprang to her lips—a spontaneous, irresistible betrayal.