A Hardy Norseman. Lyall Edna

to love me?”

      “You misunderstand me,” said Mr. Morgan. “I don’t wish to say one word against yourself. However, as you have alluded to the matter I must tell you plainly that I expect my daughter to make a very different marriage. Money I can provide her with. Her husband will supply her with a title.”

      “What!” cried Frithiof furiously, “you will force her to marry some wretched aristocrat whom she can’t possibly love? For the sake of a mere title you ruin her happiness.”

      “I shall certainly do nothing of the kind,” said the Englishman, with a touch of dignity. “Sit down, Herr Falck, and listen to me. I would have spared you this had it been possible. You are very young, and you have taken things for granted too much. You believed that the first pretty girl that flirted with you was your future wife. I can quite fancy that Blanche was well pleased to have you dancing attendance on her in Norway, but it was on her part nothing but a flirtation, she does not care for you in the least.”

      “I do not believe it,” said Frithiof hotly.

      “Don’t think that I wish to excuse her,” said Mr. Morgan. “She is very much to be blamed. But, she is pretty and winsome, she knows her own power, and it pleases her to use it; women are all of them vain and selfish. What do they care for the suffering they cause?”

      “You shall not say such things of her,” cried Frithiof desperately. “It is not true. It can’t be true!”

      His face had grown deathly pale, and he was trembling with excitement. Mr. Morgan felt sorry for him.

      “My poor fellow,” he said kindly, “don’t take it so hard. You are not the first man who has been deceived. I am heartily sorry that my child’s foolish thoughtlessness should have given you this to bear. But, after all, it’s a lesson every one has to learn; you were inexperienced and young.”

      “It is not possible!” repeated Frithiof in terrible agitation, remembering vividly her promises, her words of love, her kisses, the expression of her eyes, as she had yielded to his eager declaration of love. “I will never believe it possible till I hear it from her own lips.”

      With a gesture of annoyance, Mr. Morgan crossed the room and rang the bell. “Well, let it be so, then,” he said coldly. “Blanche has treated you ill; I don’t doubt it for a moment, and you will have every right to hear the explanation from herself.” Then, as the servant appeared, “Tell Miss Morgan that I want her in the drawing-room. Desire her to come at once.”

      The minutes of waiting which followed were the worst Frithiof had ever lived through. Doubt, fear, indignation, and passionate love strove together in his heart, while mingled with all was the oppressive consciousness of his host’s presence, and of the aggressive superiority of the room and its contents.

      Perhaps the waiting was not altogether pleasant to Mr. Morgan; he poked the fire and moved about restlessly. When, at last, light footsteps were heard on the stairs, and Blanche entered the room, he turned toward her with evident displeasure in his face.

      She wore a dress of reddish brown with a great deal of plush about it, and something in the way it was made suggested the greatest possible contrast to the little simple traveling-dress she had worn in Norway. Her eyes were bright and eager, her loveliness as great as ever.

      “You wanted me, papa?” she began; then, as she came forward and recognized Frithiof, she gave a little start of dismay and the color burned in her cheeks.

      “Yes, I wanted you,” said Mr. Morgan gravely. “Herr Falck’s son has just arrived.”

      She struggled hard to recover herself.

      “I am very glad to see you again,” she said, forcing up a little artificial laugh and holding out her hand.

      But Frithiof had seen her first expression of dismay and it had turned him into ice; he would not take her proffered hand, but only bowed formally. There was a painful silence.

      “This is not the first time, Blanche, that you have learned what comes of playing with edged tools,” said Mr. Morgan sternly. “I heard from others that you had flirted with Herr Falck’s son in Norway; I now learn that it was by your own suggestion that he came to England to ask my consent to an engagement, and that you allowed him to believe that you loved him. What have you to say for yourself?”

      While her father spoke, Blanche had stood by with bent head and downcast eyes; at this direct question she looked up for a moment.

      “I thought I did care for him just at the time,” she faltered. “It—it was a mistake.”

      “Why, then, did you not write and tell him so? It was the least you could have done,” said her father.

      “It was such a difficult letter to write,” she faltered. “I kept on putting it off, and hoping that he, too, would find out his mistake. And then sometimes I thought I could explain it all better to him if he came.”

      Frithiof made a step or two forward; his face was pale and rigid; the blue seemed to have died out of his eyes—they looked like steel. “I wait for your explanation,” he said, in a voice which, in spite of its firmness, betrayed intense agitation.

      Mr. Morgan without a word quitted the room, and the two were left alone. Again there was a long, expressive silence. Then, with a sob, Blanche turned away, sinking down on an ottoman and covering her face with her hands. Her tears instantly melted Frithiof; his indignation and wounded pride gave pace to love and tenderness; a sort of wild hope rose in his mind.

      “Blanche! Blanche!” he cried. “It isn’t true! It can’t be all over! Others have been urging you to make some grand marriage—to be the wife perhaps of some rich nobleman. But he can not love you as I love you. Oh! have you forgotten how you told me I might trust to you? There is not a moment since then that you have not been in my thoughts.”

      “I hoped so you would forget,” she sobbed.

      “How could I forget? What man could help remembering you day and night? Oh, Blanche, don’t you understand that I love you? I love you!”

      “I understand only too well,” she said, glancing at him, her dark eyes brimming over with tears.

      He drew nearer.

      “And you will love me once more,” he said passionately. “You will not choose rank and wealth; you will—”

      “Oh, hush! hush!” she cried. “It has all been a dreadful mistake. I never really loved you. Oh, don’t look like that! I was very dull in Norway—there was no one else but you. I am sorry; very sorry.”

      He started back from her as if she had dealt him some mortal blow, but Blanche went on, speaking quickly and incoherently, never looking in his face.

      “After we went away I began to see all the difficulties so plainly—our belonging to different countries, and being accustomed to different things; but still I did really think I liked you till we got to Christiania. There, on the steamer coming home, I found that it had all been a mistake.”

      She paused. All this time she had carefully kept the fingers of her left hand out of view; the position was too constrained not to attract Frithiof’s notice.

      He remembered that, in the wearing of betrothal or wedding-rings, English custom reversed the Norwegian, and turned upon her almost fiercely.

      “Why do you try to hide that from me?” he cried. “Are you already betrothed to this other man?”

      “It was only last Sunday,” she sobbed. “And I meant to write to you; I did indeed.”

      Once more she covered her face with her hands, this time not attempting to hide from Frithiof the beautiful circlet of brilliants on her third finger.

      It seemed to him that giant hands seized on him then and crushed out of him his very life. Yet the pain of living went on remorselessly, and as if from a very great distance he heard Blanche’s voice.

      “I am engaged