"I will wait for you, my Nellie, till you can be ready. I will wait any time you name."
"I am not 'your Nellie,'" she answered, "and you must not wait. Good-bye; I can bear no more."
She turned to the door, but he came up to her once more and stood between her and it.
"I will not oblige you to leave the room," he said bitterly; "I will go. Good-bye."
And in another moment, the front door slammed heavily, and he was gone.
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
GUESSING.
GONE! Nellie would have given everything she possessed, in those first moments, to recall her lover. Her lover no longer—cut off from her by her own definite act.