She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she
exclaimed. "Stand back, sir. You frighten me."

I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am.
Can you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of
saving your life?"

Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without
hesitation, and took me by the hand.

"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not so
ungrateful as I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was mad
with misery when I tried to drown myself. Don't distrust me!
Don't despise me!" She stopped; I saw the tears on her cheeks.
With a sudden contempt for herself, she dashed them away. Her
whole tone and manner altered once more. Her reserve returned;
she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and defiance
in her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "you
were dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see
me; you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar
words to a stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try to
frighten me by talking of it as if it was a real thing!" She
changed again; her eyes softened to the sad and tender look which
made them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew her cloak round her
with a shudder, as if she felt the chill of the night air. "What
is the matter with me?" I heard her say to herself. "Why do I
trust this man in my dreams? And why am I ashamed of it when I
wake?"

That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know
that I had overheard her last words.

"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said.
"Do me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--you
are in trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to help
you."

She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature
drew it away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be
the fear of letting me touch her.

"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what I
have got to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write.
Are you staying in Edinburgh?"

I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--with
this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the
address of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by
the moonlight when I put it into her hand.

"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as
the name passed her lips. " 'George Germaine.' I never heard of
'Germaine.' But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiled
sadly at some passing fancy or remembrance in which I was not
permitted to share. "There is nothing very wonderful in your
being called 'George,' " she went on, after a while. "The name is
common enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man's name And
yet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, "I am
not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called
'George.' "

So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery!

If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my
Christian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in the
briefest and most guarded terms of her past life--the barrier
between us, which the change in our names and the lapse of ten
years had raised, must have been broken down; the recognition
must have followed. But I never even thought of it; and for this
simple reason--I was in love with her. The purely selfish idea of
winning my way to her favorable regard by taking instant
advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the
one idea which occurred to my mind.

"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off till
to-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I
deserve some little return for the sympathy that I feel with you?
I don't ask for much. Make me happy by making me of some service
to you before we part to-night."

I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole
woman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in
mine; her charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and
nearer to me; her head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured
in faint accents, broken by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. I
am so friendless; I am so completely in your power." Before I
could answer, before I could move, her hand closed on mine; her
head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears.

Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected
her at that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away
gently past the ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill.

"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk a
little, and you will soon be yourself again."

She smiled through her tears like a child.

"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentally
taken the direction which led away from the city; she begged me


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