grieved for him, if I could have been honest; as it is, I am in danger
almost of hating him. Forgive me, uncle, but I am! How do you suppose I
feel when voices are lowered and eyes cast down, not to intrude upon my
'peculiar, privileged grief? 'Here I and Sorrow sit!' Isn't it awful,
uncle? Isn't it ghastly, indecent? I am afraid some day I shall break out
and do some dreadful thing,--laugh or say something shocking, when they try
to spare my feelings. Feelings! when my heart is as hard, this moment, to
everything but myself, myself! I am so sick of myself! But how can I help
thinking about myself when I can never for one moment _be_ myself?"

"This is something that goes deeper," said Mr. Withers. "I confess it is
difficult for me to follow you here; to understand how a love as meek as
that of the dead, who ask nothing, could lay such deadly weights upon a
young girl's life."

"Not his love--mine, mine! Is it truly in his grave? If it is not, why do I
dare to profess daily that it is, to go on lying every day? I want back
my word, that I never gave to any man. Can't one repent and confess a
falsehood? And do you call it confessing, when all but one person in the
world are still deceived?"

"It is not easy for me to advise you, Daphne," said Mr. Withers wearily.
"Your struggle has discovered to me a weakness of my own: verily, an old
man's fond jealousy for the memory of his son. Almost I could stoop to
entreat you. I do entreat you! So long as we defraud no one else, so long
as there is no living person who might justly claim to know your heart, why
rob my poor boy's grave of the grace your love bestows, even the semblance
that it was? Let it lie there like a mourning wreath, a purchased tribute,
we will say," the father added, with a smile of sad irony; "but only a rude
hand would rob him of his funereal honors. There seems to be an unnecessary