han an adventuress who has been successful. Why,
the very method I used to make your acquaintance years and years ago,
wasn't it?--proved the spirit. 'We hate two kinds of people,'" she
read, taking up another page of manuscript; "'the people we wrong and
the people who wrong us. Only, the hate for those we have wronged is
most enduring.' That isn't half bad, Dick. How do you think of all
these things?"

She crossed over to the window to cool her hot face. She, too, heard
the voices of the night; not as the poet hears them, but as one in
pain. "He never loved me!" she murmured, so softly that even the
sparrows in the vine heard her not. And bitter indeed was the pain.
But of what use to struggle, or to sigh, or vainly to regret? As
things are written, so must they be read. She readily held him
guiltless; what she regretted most deeply was the lack of power to
have him and to hold him. Long before, she had realized the
hopelessness of it all. Knowing that he drank from the cup of
dissipation, she had even sought to hold him in contempt; but to her
he had never ceased to be a gentleman, tender, manly and kind. It is
contempt that casts the first spadeful in the grave of love.

"Come, girl," he said, going to her side; "you have something to tell
me. What is it?"

She turned to find his hand outstretched and a friendly look in his
eyes. Impulsively she gave him both her hands. He bowed over them with
the grave air of the days of powdered wigs. There was not a particle
of irony in the movement; rather it was a quiet acknowledgment that he
recollected the good influence she had at times worked upon him in
some dark days. As he brushed her fingers with his lips, he saw. His
head came up quickly.

"Ah!"

"Yes." Her voice was steady and her eyes were brave.

He drew her to the lamp and studied the ring. The ruddy lights dartled
as he slowly turned the jewel around.

"It is a beauty. No one but a rich man could have given a ring like
that. And on your finger it means but one thing."

"I am to be married in June."

"Do you love him?"

"I respect him; he is noble and good and kind."

Warrington did not press the question. He still retained the hand,
though he no longer gazed at the ring.

"I have always wanted a home. The stage never really fascinated me; it
was bread and butter."

"Is it necessary to marry in order to have a home?" he asked quietly,
letting the hand gently slide from his. "You are wealthy, after