The scene to which he had just been an unsuspected witness was more than equivalent to a mere declaration of love: it was a leap-year offer of her hand and heart.

She had no strong-hold of Duty left to which to betake herself, nor even a halting-place, such as coy maidens love to linger at a little before they murmur, "I am yours." There was nothing left her but revilings.

She poured upon him a torrent of contumely, reproaching him for his baseness, his cowardice, his treachery in tracking her hither, like a spy, to overhear a confession that should have been sacred with him of all men.

Whatever that confession might have been--and, to say truth, so utterly possessed had she been by her passionate hopes, her loving yearnings, that she knew not what she had merely felt, what uttered aloud--she now retracted it; she had no tenderness for eaves-droppers, for deceivers, for--she did not know what she was saying--for wicked young men.

Above all things it seemed necessary to be in a passion; to be as irritated and bitter against him as possible.