Iris hid her face in the bouquet of white hyacinths which she carried.
"It is too late to talk of that now," she murmured. "Your heart went out to another before—before I met you."
"There is such a thing as affections waning when one discovers that one's heart is not truly mated, Iris," he cried.
She did not answer; and thus emboldened by her silence, he went on, huskily:
"Let me give you the whole history of my meeting with Dorothy Glenn, from first to last, and you will understand the situation better. You can realize, Iris, that an acquaintance which commences through a flirtation, as it were, can never end in true love. Such an acquaintance is not a lasting one. Come and sit down on this rustic seat, Iris, and listen; and as we sit here in the dim, mellow light, you shall judge me, and your decision shall seal my fate."
At the self-same moment in which Harry Kendal was beginning his narrative, there was quite a commotion at the outer gate which guarded the main entrance of Gray Gables.
One of the servants, lounging lazily at his post of duty, was suddenly startled out of the doze into which he had fallen by the shadow of a woman flitting hurriedly past him.
"Hold on, there! Hold on, I say! Who are you, and what do you want?"
A figure clad in a long dark cloak, hooded and veiled, stopped short with a little exclamation, which he could not quite catch.
"Hold on, there! Where are you going?" he repeated, springing to her side. "There is something going on here to-night. You can't enter these grounds until I know who you are and what your business is."