except the impossibility of answering it!'

'But I do not mean anything ridiculous,' said Hazel,?'not bread and b.u.t.ter and partridges. At least, I don't know about the partridges?but you understand. And I do not mean that I would not give _them_ up,?only?'

'Did I convey the impression that I wished you to give up partridges?'

'Yes?if somebody else wanted them more,' said Hazel. 'And I am willing enough. But then, but then!?I wish you knew,' she said, rising abruptly as Dingee came in to clear the table. 'I wish I could tell you.'?

CHAPTER XV.

CONFIDENTIAL TALK.

Dane waited, till Dingee's services had been performed and the door was closed behind him again; then came beside Wych Hazel where she was standing and drew her within his arm.

'What do you wish you could tell me, Hazel?' he said, with the tenderness of eye and voice which, with him, came instead of expletives of endearment. There was a faint quiver of the lips that answered,

'Things?about me, that you ought to know. And it is very hard to tell you some things, Mr. Rollo.'

'It would be easier, if you could call me something else,' he said, bending to kiss her. 'I should like to know anything about you.

What are these "things"?'

'My thoughts? and life. And I cannot tell them without saying so much?that I would not say, and, maybe, ought not.?Only, when you begin to start questions?and subjects,?then,?' Hazel paused to gather her forces. 'Then I think it is right you should know everything about me, first.' The last word came out very low, and even the instinct of truth could hardly have carried her further just then.

'Go on, and tell me,' said Dane gently. 'The words are as sweet to me as a chime of bells; but, just yet, not so intelligible.'

She stood very still for a minute, her head bent down. Then softly disengaged herself.

'I cannot talk to you so,' she said. 'Sit down, please, in the bergere, and let me sit here; and I will tell?what I can.'

"Here" meant a low foot cushion near the bergere, where the young lady placed herself, but a little drawn back and turned away, where only the firelight could look in her face.

'Stop!'?said Dane, arresting this part of the arrangements. 'You at my feet!'?

'Yes, if I like it,' said Hazel. 'When you have to gainsay people in great things, you should always let them have their way in small.'

She got up and crossed over to the fire, replacing a brand that had fallen down; came back to her cushion and sat there a minute with her hands folded.

'A year ago,?' she said, 'when you drove home with me from Moscheloo,?you had no new views, Mr. Rollo. None in practice.

In a sense, you and I were on the same ground.'

'Well?'?said he, a little anxiously.

'Then in the winter,?I partly guessed first from Dr. Maryland's words what you told me,?in effect, yourself. And at first I liked it,?I thought I was glad.'

'At first'?echoed Rollo.

'At first,' Hazel repeated. 'It suited me, to have you take the highest stand you could, and Mrs. Coles stirred up enough antagonism to keep me from knowing that I was anything but glad.'

'Why should you be anything but glad?' said Dane, in tones which did not reveal the surprise which was growing upon him.

'I did not know that I was?until you came. Mr. Falkirk kept up the antagonism, and I had not much time to think. But when you came?' She hesitated a little, then went steadily on. It was so like Hazel, to do what she had to do, if it took her through fire and water!?'I had left you standing in one place,' she said, 'and you had moved quite away to another. And I knew?that standing there?you would never have seen me.'

'That is a conclusion you have no right to,' said Dane calmly.

'No matter?it is true. You eyes would have been set for other things, and your appreciation would have been all changed and different. I knew it then, that night. You talked of things I but half understood, and your face was all shining with a light that did not fall on me. And partly it mortified me,?I was used to having at least some vantage ground; and partly it brought back the old loneliness, which had?perhaps?just a little bit gone away. Then you left me a lesson.'

Dane sat where she had desired him, but leaning down towards her, listening and looking very gravely and intently. 'Yes,' he answered; 'and you studied it.'

'I tried.'?The words came rather faintly. 'And that was there the tangle began.'

'What made the tangle?'

'Because?because the lesson and you were all wrapped up together. And I could never study it without?studying you. And so?so it came,'?she drew her breath a little, holding her fingers tight,?'that before I _could_ know much about that?I had to decide something else?definitely?first.'

Certainly some things are hard to tell!

'Well, you _did_ decide something else definitely,' said Dane, with most delightful matter-of-fact gravity of manner, not seeming to recognize her difficulty at all.

'Then the tangle grew worse,' said Hazel. 'I used to think I was trying to be interested, or trying to understand, or trying to do, just to please you,?or because you would like me better. And besides?'

'Well?it would not have been very wicked if that had been partly true.'

'No,' said Hazel,?'but then the work would not have been real; and I never could tell. And besides,' she went on again, 'you did not come, and I did not hear,?and it did not suit me to be always thinking about you?and I tried to put the whole thing out of my head.'

'Did I make a mistake then?' said Rollo. 'But I found I could not bear very well to meet you on the neutral ground of that year. I was waiting.'

'Yes. I was not speaking of that,' she said. 'When you take such a tangle into society, it ties itself into twenty new knots. That is all that need be said of the summer and spring. Then I came home.'

'And _then_ I made a mistake,' said Rollo. 'You need not tell me that.'

She sighed a little, answering to another point.

'You could not know that you had started all the old questions again, and that I thought it was maybe your changed point of view?that made it so easy for you to give me up.'

'But why do you recal all this now, Hazel?' asked Dane, very quietly. 'I never gave you up; it was a fancied somebody that was not you.'

'It came in the course of my story. I could not pa.s.s it. Only for that,' she said, turning her face towards him for a moment.

'Because then, in some of those days, I thought?perhaps?I had learned the lesson you set me.'

'And you do not think so now?'

'I am not sure that it was true work,' she answered slowly. 'For in a storm one flies to shelter,?and just then my hands sought anything that could stand and would not change. But now?'

Dane was proverbially scarce a patient man after a certain line was pa.s.sed. He left his chair now, stooped and took Hazel's hands and gently pulled her up from her low cushion; and then took her in his arms and held her close.

'I understand all about it,' he said. 'You need not try to tell me any more. My little Wych!? Look here; there are just two things to be said, one mediate, the other immediate. In the first place, no uncertainty of motives need embarra.s.s or delay your action in a course that you know to be right. In the next place,?Hazel,?don't you see, that when we have been married a while and I am become an old story, I shall be more of a help and less of a hindrance? And I know all about you; and I don't know it a bit better after all this long exposition than I did before. And if I have changed my standpoint relatively to some things, I have never changed it respecting you, except to draw nearer. Now confess you have been a foolish child.'

The soft laugh which answered him had more than shyness to make it unsteady.