thing to her, while failure would leave her
nothing, only blank despair. Pride, the dominant passion of her
life, struggled with a newly awakened love; doubt and dread and fear
battled with hope, but even in the unequal contest, hope would not
be vanquished.

Shortly before the hour appointed, Richard Hobson's card was handed
her with the information that he must see her without delay. She
understood the nature of his errand; she knew his coming was
inevitable; her only desire was to postpone the meeting with him
until after the interview with Harold Mainwaring, but on no account
would she have him know of her appointment with the latter. She
tore the bit of pasteboard in two.

"Tell him to call to-morrow," she said to the messenger; but he soon
returned, with another card on which was written,--

"Important! must see you to-day."

It was nearly five. Quickly, with fingers trembling from her
anxiety lest he delay too long, she wrote,--

"Call at eight o'clock this evening; I can see no one earlier."

As she gave the card to the messenger, she glanced again at the
little French clock on the mantel.

"Three hours," she murmured; "three hours in which to decide my fate!
If I succeed, I can bid defiance to that craven when he shall come
to-night; if not--" she shuddered and walked over to the window,
where she watched eagerly till she saw the cringing figure going
hastily down the street.

He had but just disappeared around the corner of the block when a
closed carriage was driven rapidly to the hotel, and a moment later
Harold Scott Mainwaring was announced.

Her heart throbbed wildly as she turned to meet him, then suddenly
stopped, seeming a dead weight in her breast, as her eyes met his.

For a moment neither spoke; once her lips moved, but no sound came
from them. Before that face, hard and impassive as granite, and as
cold, the impulse which she had felt to throw herself at his feet
and plead for mercy and for love died within her; her tongue seemed
paralyzed, powerless to utter a word, and the words she would have
spoken fled from her brain.

With swift observation he noted the terrible change which the last
weeks, and especially the last few hours, had wrought in the wretched
woman before him, and the suffering, evidenced by her deathly pallor,
her trembling agitation, and the look of dumb, almost hopeless
pleading in her eyes, appealed to him far more than any words could
have done.

He was t