the prettiest wedding gown! It's all a mistake and a misunderstanding,
and the good Lord knows there's too much of both in this old world!
You'll think better of it all, and you'll find that you didn't know your
own mind,--and there'll be a smile for poor Cary when he comes riding
back to-night?"

"No, no," cried Jacqueline. "There is no mistake and no
misunderstanding. Love cannot be forced, and I'll not marry where I do
not love!"

"You don't," said Colonel Churchill slowly, "you don't by any chance
love some one else? What does that colour mean, Jacqueline? Don't
stammer! Speak out!"

But Jacqueline, standing by the old leather chair, bowed her head upon
its high green back, and neither could nor would "speak out." The two
men, grey and withered, obstinate and imperious in a day and generation
that subordinated youth to the councils of the old, gazed at their niece
with perplexity and anger. With the simpler of the two the perplexity
was the greater, with the other anger. A fear was knocking at Major
Churchill's heart. He would not admit it, strove not to listen to it, or
to listen with contemptuous incredulity. "It's not possible," he said to
himself. "Not a thousand summers at Jane Selden's would make her so
forget herself! Jacqueline in love with that damned Jacobin demagogue
upstairs! Pshaw!" But the fear knocked on.

Jacqueline lifted her head. "Be good to me, Uncle Dick! If I could love,
if I could marry Mr. Cary, I would--I would indeed! But I cannot. Please
let me go!"