and I--shame
and all."

She sighed, gazed intently for a silent minute at the keys of the
elaborate machine before her, and then continued, speaking very
slowly, as if she were afraid of drawing too largely on her
newly-found candour.

"Why should I keep it from you? It makes me feel a liar every time I
see you. I will be quite plain with you, sir; perhaps the truth's
best, though it's hard enough. I've seen him; that's why I couldn't
tell you any more. And it's all over and done, and God help us! We
must make the best of it. You see, sir, he is married," said the
girl, with a sharp intonation in her voice like a sob.

Rainham had sunk into a chair wearily; he looked up at her now,
drawing a long breath, which, for some reason he could not analyse,
was replete with relief.

"Married?" he ejaculated; "are you sure?"

"Sure enough," said Kitty Crichton. "He told me so."

"Do you care for this fellow?" he asked curiously after a while.

The flush on her face had faded into two hectic spots on either
cheek; there was a lack of all animation in her voice, whether of
hope or indignation; she had the air of a person who gave up, who
was terribly tired of things.

"Care?" she echoed. "I don't rightly know, sir; I think it's all
dead together--love and anger, and my good looks and all. I care for
the child, and I don't want to harry or hunt him down for the sake
of what has been,--that's all."

He regarded her with the same disinterested pity which had seized
him when he saw her first. There were only ruins of a beauty that
must have once been striking. As he watched her a doubt assailed
him, whether, after all, he had not been deceived by a bare
resemblance; whether, in effect, she had ever been actually
identical with that brilliant Pierrette whose likeness had so amazed
him in Lightmark's rooms.

"By the way," he asked suddenly, "you told me you have been a model:
did--was this man a painter? Has he ever painted you?"

The girl fell back a step or two irresolutely.

"Ah! why do you trouble so? What does it matter?" Then she added
faintly, but hurriedly stumbling over her words:

"He wasn't a painter--only for amusement; he didn't exhibit. He was
a newspaper writer. But he couldn't get work, and got a place in a
foreign-going steamer, to keep accounts, I think. That was
afterwards, and that's why I looked for him at your dock. They told
me the ship had been there, but it wasn't true. Ah! let me be, sir,
let