e, weighing his sympathy against his irritation,
and feeling it sink in the scale, when the curtain of a distant doorway
was lifted and Mrs. Light passed across the room. She stopped half-way,
and gave the young persons a flushed and menacing look. It found
apparently little to reassure her, and she moved away with a passionate
toss of her drapery. Rowland thought with horror of the sinister
compulsion to which the young girl was to be subjected. In this ethereal
flight of hers there was a certain painful effort and tension of wing;
but it was none the less piteous to imagine her being rudely jerked down
to the base earth she was doing her adventurous utmost to spurn. She
would need all her magnanimity for her own trial, and it seemed gross to
make further demands upon it on Roderick's behalf.

Rowland took up his hat. "You asked a while ago if I had come to help
you," he said. "If I knew how I might help you, I should be particularly
glad."

She stood silent a moment, reflecting. Then at last, looking up, "You
remember," she said, "your promising me six months ago to tell me what
you finally thought of me? I should like you to tell me now."

He could hardly help smiling. Madame Grandoni had insisted on the fact
that Christina was an actress, though a sincere one; and this little
speech seemed a glimpse of the cloven foot. She had played her great
scene, she had made her point, and now she had her eye at the hole
in the curtain and she was watching the house! But she blushed as she
perceived his smile, and her blush, which was beautiful, made her fault
venial.

"You are an excellent girl!" he said, in a particular tone, and gave her
his hand in farewell.

There was a great chain of rooms in Mrs. Light's apartment, the pride
and joy of the hostess on festal evenings, through which the departing
visitor passed before reaching the door. In one of the first of these
Rowland found himself waylaid and arrested by the distracted lady
herself.

"Well, well?" she cried, seizing his arm. "Has she listened to you--have
you moved her?"

"In Heaven's name, dear madame," Rowland begged, "leave the poor girl
alone! She is behaving very well!"

"Behaving very well? Is that all you have to tell me? I don't believe
you said a proper word to her. You are conspiring together to kill me!"

Rowland tried to soothe her, to remonstrate, to persuade her that it was
equally cruel and unwise to try to force matters. But she answered hi