unmasked of his stern self-possession. "I beg your pardon," said he,
"I take back that word, recrimination."

It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less
cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head
bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern
brow to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have
set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance.
"Holman," said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, "if in the times
gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to
be any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any
reason why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon
what we are surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I
acknowledge that I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if,
after I had been forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society,
and let the canker-worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and
bloom I had left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did
the prospect of wealth and position, however hollow they may have
proved; you who are the master of both this day, because twelve
months ago you forsook Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach
me with them. I do not reproach you; I only say let the past be
forgotten--"

"Impossible," exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an
expression I could not fathom. "What was done at that time cannot be
undone. For you and me there is no future. Yes," he said turning
towards her as she made a slight fluttering move of dissent, "no
future; we can bury the past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if
you would wish to if we could; as we cannot, of course you will not
desire even to converse upon the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to