deration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale;
the soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little; she
regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the
letter down before me on the table, she said, timidly:

"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?"

I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and took up
the pen again.

"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken on
trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice sunk lower
and lower, so that I could barely hear the next words--"for more than
three months, certain."

It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in the
nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from showing some
curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by
such a postscript as this.

"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked.

"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding mine.

An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found its way
into my mind.

"Have you some absent friend," I went on, "who is likely to prove a
better friend than I am, if you only give him time?"

She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested on me
with a look of patient reproach.

"I have not got a friend in the world," she said. "For God's sake, ask
me no more questions to-night!"

I rose and gave her the letter once more--with the postscript added, in
her own words.

We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a momentary
silence.

"How can I thank you?" she murmured, softly. "Oh, sir, I will indeed be
worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!" Her eyes moistened;
her variable color came and went; her dress heaved softly over the
lovely outline of her bosom. I don't believe the man lives who could
have resisted her at that moment. I lost all power of restraint;
I caught her in my arms; I whispered, "I love you!" I kissed her
passionately. For a moment she lay helpless and trembling on my breast;
for a moment her fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant
more it was over. She tore herself away with a shudder that shook
her from head to foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her
indignantly at my feet.

"How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!" she said.
"Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will never speak
to you again.