is what I have always tried to see, and as I understand my duty,
now that you are willing to unite your life with mine, there is
something you must know."

He added the last words as though he had reached a difficult
position and were announcing his purpose to hold it. But he paused
gloomily again.

She had scarcely heard him through wonderment that he could so
change at such a moment. Her happiness began to falter and darken
like departing sunbeams. She remained for a space uncertain of
herself, knowing neither what was needed nor what was best; then
she spoke with resolute deprecation:

"Why discuss with me your past life? Have I not known you always?"

These were not the words of girlhood. She spoke from the emotions
of womanhood, beginning to-night in the plighting of her troth.

"You have trusted me too much, Isabel."

Repulsed a second time, she now fixed her large eyes upon him with
surprise. The next moment she had crossed lightly once more the
widening chasm.

"Rowan," she said more gravely and with slight reproach, "I have
not waited so long and then not known the man whom I have chosen."

"Ah," he cried, with a gesture of distress.