"Oh, just as utterly meaningless and inconsequent as are most dreams! I thought I was in a forest, looking for you and following you. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of your white dress—you wore that gown you had on when I first saw you—glimmering through an opening in the trees. But as soon as I dashed forward in pursuit the branches closed together, as in the 'Sleeping Beauty' story, and you were lost to me again, while the whole wood seemed filled with mocking laughter."
"What sort of laughter?" she inquired, eagerly. "Was it like the laughter of any one you know?"
"Why do you ask? Perhaps it was—a little. But, Lina dear, you are trembling. It is horribly selfish of me to keep you walking about in the fog when you told me you were so tired! Let me take you home!"
"No—not yet, Lorin! I have a great deal to say to you, and I must say it now while no one can hear me. I—I have been thinking deeply all to-day, and I have decided that you and I have been too hasty—we have not given ourselves time to know our own minds."
"Wait!" he exclaimed. "I felt sure something was weighing on your mind; but I can't listen here in the noise of the streets. We will pass into the Park while you tell me."
They had reached the Albert Hall, and he led her at this point into Hyde Park, deserted but for a few devoted sweethearts, as regardless as themselves of the cold and fog and frost.
"Now tell me again, dear," he said, gently, "what you have to say about our engagement!"
In the obscurity he slipped his arm about her waist, and at his touch a restful delight crept over her senses. For a few seconds she kept silence. Very soon they must part, and with a whole lifetime of dreary lovelessness before her, surely she might without great sin afford herself the momentary joy of revelling in his caresses.
But duty, stern and forbidding, lay before her, and suddenly nerving herself to the effort, she drew away from him.
"I have something to say to you," she began, "and I want you to walk quietly by my side listening, and not to touch me while I speak. Lorin, we have made a great mistake; I, at least, know that I was only flirting with you. I had made up my mind before I met you not to marry, and I am still of the same mind. Let us just be friends again!"