After all that you have suffered, so bitterly and so undeservedly, don't, pray don't, make me feel that another woman has behaved cruelly to you, and that I--so grieved to distress you--am that heartless creature!" Never in her life had she been so irresistibly charming as she was at that moment.

Her sweet nature showed all its innocent pity for him in her face.
He saw it--he felt it--he was not unworthy of it.

In silence, he lifted her hand to his lips.

He turned pale as he kissed it.
"Say that you agree with me ?" she pleaded.
"I obey you." As he answered, he pointed to the lawn at their feet.

"Look," he said, "at that dead leaf which the air is wafting over the grass.