"I shall never make you understand," she cried hopelessly. "I didn't mean to do it, to-day. I—I didn't even know that I had made up my mind to do it at all—till just as I was going into the drawing-room to see him. Then I seemed to see that it was all no use." Her voice sank to a whisper; she was trembling from head to foot.
"You musn't cry. You have to go down, remember," Gretchen observed in even tones.
Cecily drew herself up, "What more shall I tell you?" she cried passionately.
Gretchen had never heard this tone from her before; it startled her. She too rose, and they stood facing one another.
"Why do you ask me?" panted Cecily. "You know—but if you like I will tell you. I don't mind now. Nothing matters now. I knew almost from the first that I could not marry him. He is so clever. And I—every moment I was afraid he would ask me something I didn't know. I didn't understand the way he talked. I didn't understand half of what he said to me. I should never have understood it;" she wailed, "I was always afraid when he came to talk to me, and yet when he was away———" She checked herself. All the passion had died out of her tone now. "If I hadn't known it before, his letters would have shown me. Oh, I did very wrong in asking you to write, Gretchen. I knew it, the first time he answered your letter, and praised what he thought I'd said."
Gretchen suddenly caught her breath. "You never———" she began.
"No, I was afraid to ask you not to go on with it when you'd been so kind, and taken so much trouble," Cecily said. "I see myself very plainly to-night. Just as though I was some one else—I see that besides—other things—I am a coward."
