"Don't cry, Deely," said Sylv, taking her other hand. "You're tired out, and you're troubling yourself, but you don't need to. By and by you'll be happy; never fear!"
Adela clung to his hand instinctively. "You're a kind fellow, Sylv," said she, ceasing to sob. "I know you wish me well. But it's all over with me. I ought not to think of anything but Dennie. If I can make _him_ happy, why--I ought--to be satisfied." But the stifled tone in which she uttered the words showed how far she fell short of that duty.
Sylv longed to speak more tenderly to her. The touch of her trusting hand in his was maddening. He would have laid down his life, at that instant, to comfort her; and if he was ready to sacrifice his own, what mattered the life and happiness of any other? But there was only one way in which he felt sure that he could secure lasting comfort to her, so far as one man might; and that way he dared not propose. Why had he not foreseen this difficulty and this peril in time to evade them? He had imagined that his whole life depended on books, and here he found that it was nothing as compared with a woman. He had indulged in the tranquil belief that he was a disinterested student; but now he awoke to the fact that he was a reckless lover!
"Deely," he exclaimed, rising, but still keeping her hand in his, "if you don't love Dennie enough to go back to him, you must not do it!"
"And break his heart?" she asked, looking up at him with an effort at reproach.
"I speak to you as his brother," answered Sylv--"his brother, whom he sent here of his own accord to watch over you; and I say that it would be wrong. You would not be happy yourself, and you would find it impossible to make him happy."
Adela drew her hand away. "But I have promised him! And I will keep my promise."
As she spoke she rose erect: he could hear her close her teeth with a grating sound.
"I don't intend to argue about it," he said. "You are free to settle everything your own way. It appeared to me like I must tell you my opinion. That's the end of it, Deely." He paused. "I got a letter from Mr. Lance; says he's got back, and is coming up to see you. But _I_ am going away to-morrow."
Adela started violently. "_You_ going away!" Then she trembled toward him and laid her hands on his shoulders. "Oh no, no! Don't leave me now, Sylv. Don't go away!"