"It has been two whole days since you asked me if I loved you."

"But, dear, you told me so in the beginning. Do you want me not to believe you?"

Nancy turned away and, leaning against a tree began to weep convulsively. Terrence tried to take her hand but she snatched it away. "Go! Go!" she cried passionately. "Do not touch me. From henceforth we are parted forever." She drew the ring from her finger and with averted face, held it out.

Silence fell between them. The gentle rustle of leaves overhead, the drone of a bee making ready to clasp a flower, the opening and shutting of a door in the house, these were the only sounds audible. Presently Nancy felt the touch of fingers; the ring was withdrawn from her palm. In another moment she heard footsteps treading the gravel, the gate clicked and she knew she was alone. She stood for a moment leaning against the tree, then she dashed to the house, pushed open the outer door, darted up to her room and flung herself, face downward on the bed, where she sobbed her heart out, refusing her midday meal and asking to be left alone. The sun was low in the skies when, pale and still, she went slowly down stairs. Mrs. Loomis, who was sitting in the broad hall which opened east and west upon porticos, looked up as Nancy paused upon the lowest step before coming forward, but she made no remark. Nancy sat down on the carved bench opposite Mrs. Loomis's high-backed chair. She spread wide her arms and rested a hand on either arm of the bench, fixing her burning eyes upon space. She might have been posing for some figure of Tragedy.

"Is your headache better, daughter?" asked Mrs. Loomis, drawing a needle from the row of knitting she had just finished. She was a frail looking woman with fast-graying hair, a low voice and a quiet manner.

Nancy's great dark eyes rested somberly upon the questioner. "I didn't have a headache. I have parted forever from Terrence Wirt, and my heart is broken," she replied in an intense tone.

"Why, Nancy!" Mrs. Loomis laid down her knitting. "What in the world did you quarrel about?"

"We didn't quarrel. He doesn't love me. At least his love is of such poor quality that it might better be called a mild liking. Compared to mine it is as lukewarm as milk is to wine."

"Lukewarm milk is very nourishing and often to be greatly preferred to wine," remarked Mrs. Loomis with a little smile as she resumed her knitting. "You are 

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