"Of losing you."
"I am so sorry—so very sorry for him. And I am ashamed to think that I have led him on to build his hopes upon me, and now must dash them down."
"Yes—to-night," said Mattie, thoughtfully.
"Tonight!" exclaimed Harriet, in alarm.
"I don't know much about these things—I never understood what love for a young man was, having had too much to do," she added, with a little laugh that echoed strangely in that shadowy room, "but it don't seem quite the thing to keep the two on, or both of them in suspense about you."
"Do you think I would?" asked Harriet, proudly.
"It seems to me that if I were in your place, I should take a pattern from Mr. Sidney, and speak out at once—go straight at it, as he calls it—and tell him everything."
"But——"
Mattie became excited in her turn.
"It isn't right—it isn't fair to let a man keep thinking of you, when you've turned against him," she cried; "it's cowardly and base to hide the truth from him, or be afraid of telling it. It won't kill him, Harriet, for he's a proud spirit, that will bear up through it all, bitterly as he will feel it for a while."