A Morbid Scruple.

Mrs. Delane had ceased to struggle against the inevitable, and she hailed her daughter's desire to see Dale Bannister as an encouraging sign of a return to a normal state of mind. Strange as Janet's demeanor had been since that fearful evening, there could not be anything seriously wrong with her when her wishes and impulses ran in so natural a channel. Mrs. Delane received Dale with an approach to enthusiasm, and sent him up to the little boudoir where Janet was with an affectionate haste which in itself almost amounted to a recognition of his position.

"You must be gentle with her, please, Mr. Bannister," she said. "She wanted so much to see for herself that you were really alive that we could not refuse to allow her, but the Doctor is most strict in ordering that she should not be excited."

Dale promised to be careful, and went upstairs without a word about the strange note he had received; that was a matter between Janet and himself.

Janet was sitting, propped up with cushions, on a low chair, and she waved Dale to a seat near her. When, before sitting down, he came to her and kissed her, she did not repel his caress, but received it silently, again motioning him to the chair. Dale knelt down on the floor beside her.

"How pale you are, poor dear!" he said. "And why do you write me such dreadful things?"

"I wanted," she began in a low voice, "to tell you, Dale, that I did try, that I really did try, to call out. I did not forsake you without trying."

"What do you mean, darling? How have you forsaken me?"

"When he caught hold of me, there was plenty of time to call out. I might have warned you—I might have warned you. I might have done what she did. But I couldn't. I tried, but I couldn't. I was afraid. He said he would blow my head to bits. I was afraid, and I left her to save you."

"My dearest girl," he said, taking her hand, "you did the only thing. If you had cried out, he would have murdered you first and me afterward; all the chambers of the revolver were loaded. I would have died a thousand times sooner than have one of your dear hairs roughened; but, as it was, your death wouldn't have saved me."

She had looked at him for a moment as if with sudden hope, but, as he finished, she shook her head and said:

"I didn't think anything about that. I was just afraid, and I should have let you be killed."

"My sweet, who ever expected you to condemn yourself to certain death on the chance of saving me? It would be monstrous!"

"She did it," said Janet in low tones.

Dale paused for a minute.

"She was not in his clutches," he said. "He might have missed her."

"Ah, no, no!" she broke out suddenly. "You run down what she did to spare me! That's worst of all."

"Why, Jan, I don't say a word against her; but there was a difference."

"She thought of no difference. She only thought of you. I thought of my own life."

"Thank God if you did, dearest!"

"I'm glad you came. I wanted to tell you I had tried."

"I need nothing to make me love you more, my beauty and delight," he said, pressing her to him.

She looked at him with a sort of amazement, making a faint effort to push him away.

"It was so lucky," he went on, "that I didn't see you, or I should have rushed at him, and he would most likely have killed you. As it was——" He paused, for it seemed impossible to speak of poor Nellie's hurt as a happy outcome.

"Come," he resumed, "let's think no more about it. The wretched man is dead and Nellie Fane is getting better, and we—why, we, Jan, have one another."

With sudden impatience she rose, unlacing his arms from about her.

"Who is she?" she cried. "Who is she? Why should she give her life for you? I loved you, and I was afraid. She wasn't afraid."

Dale thought that he began to understand a little better. Jealousy was a feeling he had read about, and seen, and written about. If Jan were jealous, he could undertake to reassure her.

"She's a very old and good friend of mine," he said, "and it was just like her brave, unselfish way to——"

"What had you done to make her love you so?"

"My sweetest Jan, surely you can't think I——"

"Oh, no, no, no! I don't mean that. I'm not so mean as that."

Dale wondered whether this passionate disclaimer of jealousy did not come in part from self-delusion, though he saw that Janet made it in all genuineness.

"You have made her love you—oh, of course you have! Why did she follow you? why did she come between you and the shot? I loved you, too, Dale. Ah! how I loved—how I thought I loved you! But her love was greater than mine."

"Come, Jan, come; you exaggerate. You must be calm, dearest. Nellie and I are very fond of one another, but——"

"You know she loves you—you know she loves you to death."

"My darling, I don't know anything of the sort. But supposing she did—well, I am very sorry, very deeply grieved if she is unhappy; but I don't love her—or any other woman in the world but you, Jan. If she had saved my life a thousand times, it would make no difference. You, Jan, you are the breath of my life and the pulse of my blood."

He spoke with passion, for he was roused to combat this strange idea that threatened all his joy. As she stood before him, in her fairness and distress, he forgot his searchings of heart, his tenderness for Nellie, everything, except that she, and she alone, was the woman to be his, and neither another nor she herself should prevent it.

Looking at him, she read this, or some of it, in his eyes, for she shrank back from him, and, clasping her hands, moaned:

"Don't, don't! You must go to her—you belong to her. She saved you, not I. You are hers, not mine."

"Jan, this is madness! She is nothing to me; you are all the world."

"You must despise me," she said in a wondering way, "and yet you say that!"

"If I did despise you, still it would be true. But I worship you."

"I must not! I must not! You must go to her. She saved you. Leave me, Dale, and go back. You must not come again."

He burst out in wrath:

"Now, by God, I will not leave you or let you go! Mine you are, and mine you shall be!" and he seized her by the wrist. She gave a startled cry that recalled him to gentleness.

"Did I frighten you, my beauty? But it is so, and it must be. It is sweet of you to offer—to make much of what she did, and little of yourself. I love you more for it. But we have done with that now. Come to me, Jan."

"I can't! I can't! She would always be between us; I should always see her between us. O Dale, how can you leave her?"

"I have never loved her. I have never promised her," he replied sternly. "It is all a mere delusion. A man's love is not to be turned by folly like this."

She answered nothing, and sank back in her chair again.

"If it's jealousy," he went on, "it is unworthy of you, and an insult to me. And if it's not jealousy, it's mere madness."

"Can't you understand?" she murmured. "How can I take what is hers?"

"I can take what is mine, and I will. You gave yourself to me, and I will not let you go."

Still she said nothing, and he tried gentleness once more.

"Come, Jan, sweetest, you have made your offering—your sweet, Quixotic self-sacrifice—and it is not accepted! Say that's my want of moral altitude, if you like. So be it. I won't sacrifice myself."

"It's for her to take, not for you. I offer it to her, not to you."

"But I don't offer it to her. Would she care for such an offer? She may love me or not—I don't know; but if she does, she will not take my hand without my heart."

"You must love her. If you could love me, how much more must you love her?"

"You are mad!" he answered, almost roughly, "mad to say such a thing! I know you love me, and I will not listen to it. Do you hear? I shall come back and see you again, and I will not listen to this."

She heard his imperious words with no sign but a little shiver.

"There," he went on, "you are still ill. I'll come back."

"No use," she murmured. "I can't, Dale."

"But you will, and you shall!" he cried. "You shall see——"

The door opened, and the nurse came in to forbid his further lingering. With a distant good-by, he left Janet motionless and pale, and, hastening downstairs, went to the Squire's room.

"I have come," he said abruptly, "to ask your sanction to my engagement with your daughter."

The Squire laid down his book.

"I'm not much surprised," he said, smiling. "What does Jan say?"

Dale launched out into a history of the sweet things Janet had said, and of the strange, wild things she said now. The Squire heard of the latter with raised eyebrows.

"Very odd," he commented. "But it seems, my dear fellow, that, for good reasons or bad, at present she says No."

"She said Yes; she can't say No now," declared Dale. "Do you consent, Mr. Delane?"

"If she does, my dear fellow. But I can't help you in this matter."

"I want no help. She is not in her senses now. I shall make an end of this folly. I will not have it."

He went out as abruptly as he had rushed in, leaving the Squire in some perplexity.

"A man of decision," he commented; "and, altogether, a couple of rather volcanic young people. They must settle it between themselves."