I upset him--that night?" she asked.

"You wish me to be frank?"

"If I had thought you would not be frank I would not have asked you.
Do you imagine it is my habit to go about putting awkward questions
like that?"

"I think you did upset him very much."

"You think I was wrong?"

"I do."

"Perhaps you are right," she admitted.

I had been bold. A desire took me to be still bolder. She was in the
carriage with me. She was not older than I. And were she Rosetta Rosa,
or a mere miss taken at hazard out of a drawing-room, she was feminine
and I was masculine. In short--Well, I have fits of rashness
sometimes.

"You say he is depressed," I addressed her firmly. "And I will
venture to inform you that I am not in the least surprised."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "And why?"

"After what you said to him that night in the dressing-room. If I had
been in Alresca's place I know that I should be depressed, and very
much depressed, too."

"You mean--" she faltered.

"Yes," I said, "I mean that."

I thought I had gone pretty far, and my heart was beating. I could not
justly have protested had she stopped the carriage and deposited me on
the pavement by the railings of Green Park. But her character was
angelic. She accepted my treatment of her with the most astounding
meekness.

"You mean," she said, "that he is in love with me, and I chose just
that night to--refuse him."

I nodded.

"That is emotional cause enough, isn't it, to account for any
mysterious depression that any man is ever likely to have?"

"You are mistaken," she said softly. "You don't know Alresca. You
don't know his strength of mind. I can assure you that it is
something more than unreturned love that is destroying him."

"Destroying him?"

"Yes, destroying him. Alresca is capable of killing a futile passion.
His soul is too far removed from his body, and even from his mind, to
be seriously influenced by the mistakes and misfortunes of his mind
and body. Do you understand me?"

"I think so."

"What is the matter with Alresca is something in his most secret
soul."

"And you can form no idea of what it is?"

She made no reply.

"Doctors certainly can't cure such diseases as that," I said.

"They can try," said Rosetta Rosa.

"You wish me to try?" I faced her.

She inclined her head.

"Then I will," I said with sudden passionateness, forgetting even that
I was not Alresca's doctor.

The carriage stopped. In the space of less than a