"What do you mean, Georgiana?" I cried, imploringly.

"Ah, Adam!" she said, with a rush of feeling. It was the first time
she had ever called me by name. She bent her face down. Over it
there passed a look of sweetness and sadness indescribably blended.
"Ah, Adam! you have asked me many times to _marry_ you! Make me
believe once that you _love_ me! Make me feel that I could trust
myself to you for life!"

"What else can I do?" I answered, stirred to the deepest that was
in me, throwing my arms backward, and standing with an open breast
into which she might gaze.

And she did search my eyes and face in silence.

"What more," I cried again, "in God's name?"

She rested her face on her palm, looking thoughtfully across the
yard. Over there the red-bird was singing. Suddenly she leaned
down towards me. Love was on her face now. But her eyes held
mine with the determination to wrest from them the last truth they
might contain, and her voice trembled with doubt:

"Would you put the red-bird in a cage for me? Would you be willing
to do that for me, Adam?"

At those whimsical, cruel words I shall never be able to reveal
all that I felt--the surprise, the sorrow, the pain. Scenes of
boyhood flashed through my memory. A conscience built up through
years of experience stood close by me with admonition. I saw the