“Oh, no, I am quite well,” she answered; but it was with an involuntary sigh that was in contrast with the words.  “But you are not strong yet, Mr. Wayne, and I must not let you linger too long in the fresh morning air.  We had best go in under shelter of the veranda.”

She arose, and would have led the way, but he detained her gently with a light touch upon her sleeve.

“Stay one moment, I pray you.  I seem to breathe new life with this pure air, and the perfume of these bowers awakens within me an inexpressible and calm delight.  I shall be all the better for one tranquil hour with nature in bloom, if you, like the guardian nymph of these floral treasures, will sit beside me.”

He drew her gently back into the seat, and looked long and earnestly upon her face.  She felt his gaze, but dared not return it, and her fair head drooped like a flower that bends beneath the glance of a scorching sun.

“Miss Weems,” he said at last, but his voice was so low and tremulous that it scarce rose above the rustle of the swinging willow boughs, “you are soon to be a bride, and in your path the kind Destinies will shower blessings.  When they wreathe the orange blossoms in your hair, and you are led to the altar by the hand to which you must cling for life, if I should not be there to wish you joy, you will not deem, will you, that I am less your friend?”

The fair head drooping yet lower was her only answer.

“And when you shall be the mistress of a home where Content will be shrined, the companion of your virtues, and over your threshold many friends shall be welcomed, if I should never sit beside your hearthstone, you will not, will you, believe that I have forgotten, or that I could forget?”

Still lower the fair head drooped, but she answered only with a falling tear.

“I told you the other day that we should be strangers through life, and why, I must not tell, although perhaps your woman’s heart may whisper, and yet not condemn me for that which, Heaven knows, I have struggled against—­alas, in vain!  Do not turn from me.  I would not breathe a word to you that in all honor you should not hear, although my heart seems bursting with its longing, and I would yield my soul with rapture from its frail casket, for but one moment’s right to give its secret wings.  I will bid you farewell to-morrow”—­

“To-morrow!”

“Yes, the doctor says that the sea air will do me good, and an occasion offers to-morrow which I shall embrace.  It will be like setting forth upon a journey through endless solitudes, where my only companions will be a memory and a sorrow.”

He paused a while, but continued with an effort at composure.

“Our hearts are tyrants to us, Miss Weems, and will not, sometimes, be tutored into silence.  I see that I have moved, but I trust not offended you.”

“You have not offended,” she murmured, but in so low a tone that perhaps the words were lost in the faint moan of the swaying foliage.