"I can't smile when I'm unhappy, Fledra. I can't! I can't! This past week has been almost unbearable."

"It's been that way with me, too," said Flea simply.

"Then why don't you make us both happy by being honest with me? If you didn't care for me, I should have no right to force your confidence; but you really do, don't you?"

"Yes; but I'm never goin' to marry ye, because mebbe I can't never tell ye. I think ye might trust me. It's easy when ye love anyone. I say, ye couldn't marry me without, could ye?" She seemed to suddenly grow old in her sagacious argument. Horace shook his head sadly.

"We'd never be happy, if I should," said he, "because--because I couldn't trust you."

"Oh, I want ye to trust me!" she wept. "I want ye to! Won't you once more? Please do! Won't ye forget that anything ever happened--won't ye?"

For a moment her supplication almost unnerved him; but he thought of their future, of the necessity of having unlimited faith and honor between them, and again slowly shook his head.

Suddenly the twisting hands worked themselves loose from his, and in another instant her feverish arms tightly encircled his neck. By the weight of Flea's body, Horace Sh.e.l.lington knew that her feet were no longer on the floor, each muscle in the rigid girl having so well done its part that she hung straight-limbed against him. Close to his face drew hers, and for a s.p.a.ce of time, the length of which he could never afterward accurately measure, he forgot everything but the maddening expression in her face. Her eyelids were closed, and her breath came hot upon his lips.

"I want ye to kiss me like ye did that night--kiss me--please--please--"

In her low voice was illimitable strength and pa.s.sion.

Like burning rivers, his blood was driven through his veins. He flung out his arms and crushed her to him. Just then his lips found hers.

"Dear G.o.d! How I--how I love you!" he breathed.

Fledra's arms relaxed and slipped from his shoulders.

"Then forget about what happened!" she panted.

All the bitter apprehensions of the last week swept over him at her words. His love battled with him, and he wavered. How gladly would he have dispelled every doubt and listened to her pleading!

"But I want you to tell me, Fledra."

Flea backed slowly from him.

"I can't.... I can't.... I can't tell anybody!"

The man ran his fingers across his forehead in bewilderment. In his bitter disappointment he turned away.

"When you come to me," his voice broke into huskiness, "when you tell me what happened that night before you saw my sister, I shall--I shall love you--forever!"

Then came a single moment of critical silence; but it needed only the thought of Ann for the girl to toss aside his plea and turn upon her heel.

"I don't want Sister Ann to know that I love ye," she said sulkily. "Ye won't tell her?"

"No, no, of course not--not yet!" He dropped into his chair, his head falling forward in his hands. "I wouldn't have believed," he said from between his fingers, "that my love for you--"

Flea stopped him with an interruption:

"Are ye trying to stop lovin' me?"

Horace shook his shoulders, lifting swift eyes to hers. He noted her expression irrevocable in its decision of silence. She was extraordinarily lovely, and he grew suddenly angry that he had not the power to change her, to draw from her unresistingly the story she had locked from his perusal.

"Don't be foolish, Fledra!" he said quite harshly. "A man can't love and unlove at will. I feel as if I should never know another happy moment!"

For several days Ann watched her brother in dismay. He had grown taciturn and gloomy. The boyish energy had left him. She ventured to speak to Everett about it.

"He doesn't seem like the same boy at all," she said sadly, after explaining. "I can't imagine what has caused the change in him."

Everett remembered Sh.e.l.lington's face as it had bent over Fledra, and smiled slightly.

"Have you ever thought lately that he might be in love?"

"In love!" gasped Ann. "No, I know that he isn't; for it was only at the time of the Dryden Fair that he told me he cared for no one."

"He might have changed since then," Everett said quizzically.

"But he hasn't met anyone lately," argued Ann. "I know it isn't Katherine; for--for he told me so."

"I know someone he met at the fair."

Ann, startled, glanced up.

"Who? Do tell me, Everett! Don't stand there and smile so provokingly.

If you could only understand how I have worried over him!"

Brimbecomb put on a grave face.

"Haven't you a very pretty girl in the house who is constantly under his eye?"

Still Ann did not betray understanding.

"Don't you think," asked Everett slowly, "that he might have fallen in love with--this little Fledra?"

An angry sparkle gleamed in Ann's eyes.

"Don't be stupid, Everett. Why, she's only a child. It would be awful!

Horace has some sense of the fitness of things."

Everett thought of the evening he himself had succ.u.mbed to a desire to kiss Flea.

"No man has that," he smiled, "when he is attracted toward a pretty woman."

"But she isn't even grown up."

How little one woman understands another! In his eyes Fledra had matured; for his masculinity had sought and found the natural opposite forces of her s.e.x. These thoughts he modified and voiced.

"Not quite from your standpoint, Ann; but possibly from Horace's."