me. You always thought me heartless, about my poor father even, and
unloving, and--hateful, and----"

"Not heartless; what have I done, Perpetua, that you should say
that?"

"Nothing. That is what I _detest_ about you. If you said outright
what you were thinking of me, I could bear it better."

"But my thoughts of you. They are----" He pauses. What _are_ they?
What are his thoughts of her at all hours, all seasons? "They are
always kind," says he, lamely, in a low tone, looking at the carpet.
That downward glance condemns him in her eyes--to her it is but a
token of his guilt towards her.

"They are _not!"_ says she, with a little stamp of her foot that
makes the professor jump. "You think of me as a cruel, wicked,
worldly girl, who would marry _anyone_ to gain position."

Here her fury dies away. It is overcome by something stronger. She
trembles, pales, and finally bursts into a passion of tears that
have no anger in them, only intense grief.

"I do not," says the professor, who is trembling too, but whose
utterance is firm. "Whatever my thoughts are, _your_ reading of them
is entirely wrong."

"Well, at all events you can't deny one thing," says she checking
her sobs, and gazing at him again with undying enmity. "You want to
get rid of me, you are determined to marry me to some one, so as to