“And why have you ventured to break your word to your friend?” she asked, calmly. “Surely you are touching upon my life now, in spite of your promise.”
“Because I am willing to sacrifice my word to his welfare,” I retorted; “to try to make you understand how you are blocking the path of a mighty fine-minded man by your devotion to what you call your independence. He will never ask you to do anything that he knows will be revolting to you, and until he has succeeded in pleasing you to the last page of his book he will never write again. I have done this in the hope of persuading you, at the cost even of some personal discomfort, not to rebel against his gentle leadership—to fall in with his ideas until he can fulfil this task of his, whether it be realism or pure speculation on his part. If you do this, Stuart is saved. If you do not, literature will be called upon to mourn one who promises to be one of its brightest ornaments.”
I stopped short. Miss Andrews was gazing pensively out over the mirror-like surface of the Lake. Finally she spoke.
“You may tell Mr. Harley,” she said, with a sigh, “that I will trouble him no more. He can do with me as he pleases in all save one particular. He shall not marry me to a man I do not love. If he takes the man I love for my hero, then will I follow him to the death.”
“And may I ask who that man is?”
“You may ask if you please,” she replied, with a little smile. “But I won’t answer you, except to say that it isn’t you.”
“And am I forgiven for my runaway story?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You wouldn’t expect me to condemn a man for loyalty to his friend, would you?”
With which understanding Miss Andrews and I continued our walk, and when we parted I found that the little interview I had started to write had turned into the suggestion of a romance, which I was in duty bound to destroy—but I began to have a glimmering of an idea as to who the man was that Marguerite Andrews wished for a hero, and I regretted also to find myself convinced of the truth of her statement that that man did not bear my name.