"Always the truth was best! Well, then, take the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You have been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so, too?
I will not marry you, because--because"-- The crimson flowed over her face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before.

She put her hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark with pain, met his.

"Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "I had been happy." [Illustration: "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY"] Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny earth.

The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet the forest seemed more quiet than death.

"I could not guess," he said, speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground.