accustomed myself to look up to you as a high-minded man. How
bitterly you have disappointed me!"

Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her
color; they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at
her.

"If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would
understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings
me into your presence again after two years of absence."

She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny
on my face.

"There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have
received my letter, or you have not read it?"

"I have received it, and I have read it."

"And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?"

"Yes."

She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered
her face with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have
distressed, but to have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I
heard her say. "I thought I might trust in _his_ sense of what
was due to himself and of what was compassionate toward me."

I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her
hands from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me
with a cold and steady surprise.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation,"
I said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart
is yours, whose whole life is bound up in you."

She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as
if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted
my last words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me,
and struck her open hand on the table with a passionate
resolution which I now saw in her for the first time.

"Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end
there shall be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the
house? Answer me, Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest."

There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in
earnest--vehemently in earnest.

"His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt."

She sat down again, and turned her face away from me.

"Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you
know what made him invite you to this house?"

I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read
Van Brandt's letter. I made no reply.

"You force me to tell you the truth," she went on. "He asked me
who you were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were
rich, and that _he_ wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of
your position in the world. He was too cunning to believe me; he
went out to the public-house and looked at a directory. He came
back and said, 'Mr. Germaine has a house in Berkeley Square and a
country-seat in the Highlands. He is not a man for a poor devil
like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of him, and I expect
you to make a friend of him too.' He sat down and wrote to you. I
am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His wife is
not dead, as you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to be
living. I wrote to you that I was beneath your notice, and you
have obliged me to tell you why. Am I sufficiently degraded to
bring you to your senses?"

I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my
power over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have
used it) without scruple. I took her hand.

"I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," I said.
"You have been forced into your present position: there are
circumstances which excuse you, and which you are purposely
keeping back from me. Nothing will convince me that you are a
base woman. Should I love you as I love you, if you were really
unworthy of me?"

She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to
change the subject. "There is one thing you haven't told me yet,"
she said, with a faint, forced smile. "Have you seen the
apparition of me again since I left you?"

"No. Have _you_ ever seen _me_ again, as you saw me in your dream
at the inn in Edinburgh?"

"Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell
why?"

If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have


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