fill my cup again. Oh yes, I suppose it is all settled."

Catharine was standing by the window. The wind blew in chilly and
strong, while Mr. Muller behind her sipped his tea and ambled in his
talk. Crossing the meadow, going down the road, she saw the large
figure of a man in a loose light overcoat, who swung in his gait and
carried his hat in his hand as a boy would do. Even if he had loved
her, she could not, like Maria, have gone a step to meet him, nor
intoned the Song of Solomon. But he did not love her.

She turned to her companion: "There is something I wished to say."

"In one moment, my dear." He was sweetening his tea. Hanging the
silver tongs on the lid, he looked up: "Good God, Catharine! what is
it?"

"I wished to tell you--no, don't touch me, please--this is a mistake
which we have made, and it is better to let it go no farther. It ought
to end now."

"End? Now?" But he was not surprised. The pale face staring at her
over the half-emptied cup looked as if it had been waiting to hear
this; so that they began the subject, as it were, in the middle. So
much had already been said between them without words. He set the
cup down, even in that moment folding his napkin neatly with shaking
fingers. Kitty did not laugh. She never laughed at him afterward.
Something in that large, loose figure yonder, going away from her to
the woman he loved, had whetted her eyesight and her judgment. She saw
the man at last under Muller's weak finical ways, and the manly look
he gave her.