for a moment he was speechless. Assured by his silence, she continued: " I have always had confidence in you. I believe you can have chosen no one who is not worthy of you. Tell me who she is, and why you have not spoken of her." Who had told her? That the question was the strategic guess of shrewd woman's wit did not occur to him. There was but one thing for him to do, to tell the whole story. Then he continued his plea with all the earnestness of his nature. " Flossie, I loved you first and last—it is my duty—l cannot love her as, for the sake of happiness, a woman must be loved—" Flossie stopped him again. Like a knife thrust into her heart came Harold's confession, but her's was the heart of a true woman. The thought of bringing sorrow to another girl who loved Harold and believed in him far outweighed her own sad ness. From another than Harold such words would have brought scorn and despising, but she knew that he was not a trifler, and pitied him. " Harold," said Flossie, in as firm a tone as she could com mand, " as long as you both may live, pray God to make you true to the love you have spoken." Bitterly he declared that life would be a failure. " Remember your duty," she replied earnestly. " Besides you are mistaken in your discouragement; you will recover." Harold detected such a depth of feeling and bitterness in her words that he was encouraged. " But, Flossie," he persisted, " I cannot enter upon a life with which I can never be satisfied. Didn't I tell you that I cannot see the depth of feeling, of soul, in Hazel that my heart demands ?" " Ah, Harold, you. might have seen it if you had shown her that she has all the love of which you are capable." She arose to her feet. No longer would she trust herself in the presence of his magnetic, irresistible influence lest she forget her duty. " Harold," said she, in a very low voice, " you remember Elmer Mason; he has asked me to be his wife." With these words the sun of his life seemed to go out. Stag gering to his feet, he cried : " Flossie, forgive me, and believe that all I have said was prompted by my innermost soul." He could say no more, and he bade her good-night. That night there was two sad hearts in Fenton. Flossie cried herself to sleep. Harold did not sleep at all, but he made one resolution—to ask Hazel to release him. How often he lived The Free Lance. [JuNn
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