Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/78

Rh "It 's a fact, my dear. I am afraid you 'll have to give me up. I wish I had never seen you!"

"At all events, we can write to each other."

"What 's writing? I don't know how to write! I will, though! I suppose he will open my letters. So much the worse for him!"

Nora, as she wound her wool, mused intently. "I can't believe he really grudges me our friendship. It must be something else."

Fenton, with a clench of his fist, arrested suddenly the outflow of the skein from his hand. "It is something else," he said. "It 's our possible—more than friendship!" And he grasped her two hands in his own. "Nora, choose! Between me and him!"

She stared a moment; then her eyes filled with tears. "O George," she cried, "you make me very unhappy." She must certainly tell him to go; and yet that very movement of his which had made it doubly needful made it doubly hard. "I will talk to Roger," she said. "No one should be condemned unheard. We may all misunderstand each other."

Fenton, half an hour later, having, as he said, letters to write, went up to his own room; shortly after which, Roger returned to the library. Half an hour's communion with the starlight and the ringing crickets had drawn the sting from his irritation. There came to him, too, a mortifying sense of his guest having outdone him in civility. This would never do. He took refuge in imperturbable good-humor, and entered the room in high indifference. But even before he had spoken, something in Nora's face caused this wholesome dose of