Harwin, but I feel it. Somehow, he would rather Stephen would die, or I
should, than have us marry."

"Did he ever say so?"

"Why, no, but you can feel things that nobody says. And, then, there is
something else, too. I am quite sure that sometime in his life he did
something, well, perhaps something wicked, I don't know what, but I do
know that a load lies on his conscience; for one day he told me as much.
It was just as he was going away, the day after I had refused him and he
knew of my engagement. He asked permission to come and bid me goodby.
Don't you remember?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Archdale.

"He looked at me and sighed. 'I've paid a heavy price,' he said half to
himself, 'to lose.' Then he added, 'Mistress Archdale, will you always
believe that I loved you devotedly, and always have loved you from the
hour I first saw you? If I could undo'--then he waited a moment and grew
dreadfully pale, and I think he finished differently from his first
intention--'If I could undo something in the past,' he said, 'I would
give my life to do it, but my life would be of no use.'"

"That looks as if it was something against you, Katie."

"Oh, no, I don't think so. Besides, he wouldn't have given his life at
all; that's only the way men talk, you know, when they want to make an
impression of their earnestness on women and they always think they do
it that way. But the men that are the readiest to give up their lives
don't say anything about it beforehand. Stephen would die for me, I'm