that you will not suffer."

She is trembling violently.

"And you?" she says.

"I shall go abroad until things look brighter." Then he turns to her
for the first time, and, taking both her hands, presses them
passionately. "I can hardly expect forgiveness from you," he says:
"you had, at least, a right to expect position when you made your
unhappy marriage, and now you have nothing."

I think she hardly hears this cruel speech. Her thoughts still cling
to the word that has gone before.

"Abroad?" she says, with quivering lips.

"Only for a time," says Sir James, taking pity upon her evident
distress.

"Does he owe a great deal?" asks she, feverishly. "Is it a very large
sum? Tell me how much it is."

Scrope, who is feeling very sorry for her, explains matters, while
Dorian maintains a determined silence.

"Fifteen thousand pounds, if procured at once, would tide him over his
difficulties," says Sir James, who does her the justice to divine her
thoughts correctly. "Time is all he requires."

"I have twenty thousand pounds," says Georgie, eagerly. "Lord Sartoris
says I may do what I like with it. Dorian,"--going up to him
again,--"take it,--do, _do_. You will make me happier than I have been
for a long time if you will accept it."

A curious expression lights Dorian's face. It is half surprise, half
contempt: yet, after all, perhaps there is some genuine gladness in
it.

"I cannot thank you sufficiently," he says, in a low tone. "Your offer
is more than kind: it is generous. But I cannot accept it. It is
impossible I should receive anything at your hands."

"Why?" she says, her lips white, her eyes large and earnest.

"Does that question require an answer?" asks Dorian, slowly. "There
was a time, even in our short married life, when I believed in your
friendship for me, and then I would have taken anything from
you,--from my wife; but now, I tell you again, it is impossible. You
yourself have put it out of my power."

He turns from her coldly, and concentrates his gaze once more upon the
twilit garden.

"Don't speak to me like that,--at least now," says Georgie, her breath
coming in short quick gasps. "It hurts me so! Take this wretched
money, if--if you still have any love for me."

He turns deliberately away from the small pleading face.

"And leave you penniless," he says.

"No, not that. Some day you can pay me back, if you wish it. All these
months you have given me every thing I could poss