arther.

I believe she comprehended the whole case as it stood, because she
would know that had I lost or injured the MSS. myself I should have no
reason for concealing it. As a matter of honourable feeling I wanted to
keep the fact from her, but I could not help her guessing it. Curiously
enough her next question, after a long pause--though I did not see that
in her mind there could have been connection between the subjects--was:

"Where is Nous?"

"Nous is dead."

"How did he die?"

"That, also, I would rather not say."

At that, in addition to a sharper look of distress, a puzzled surprise
came into her face. She raised her delicate eyebrows and looked at me
with a perplexed, half-frightened expression.

"Victor," she said, leaning forward a little in her chair, "was it he
that tore up the manuscript? and did you kill him in a fit of rage?"

I looked back at her, also with surprise, that she could suggest such a
thing of me as possible.

"Oh, no!" I said hastily; "nothing at all of the sort. No! If either
the loss of the book or the dog's death had occurred in any way through
my fault I would tell you. I have no secrets of my own from you, but
both of these concern another man, and therefore I would rather let
them pass."

There was silence.

Then I asked, looking at her,--

"Are you alone here, Lucia?"

"Except, of course, for my maid--Yes."

My heart beat harder. Why? I hardly know, except that the word "alone"
has such a charm in it connected with a woman we love.

"Of course," she said, leaning back, "it is a little unconventional my
coming here alone; but Mama was not well enough, and I--Victor," she
said, with a sudden indrawn breath, "I felt I must come and see you. I
told her I felt I should die there if they would not let me come!"

I saw her breast heave as she spoke, her cheek flushed and paled
alternately, the azure of her eyes deepened slowly as the pupils
widened in them, till there seemed midnight behind the lashes.

I felt a dangerous current stirring in all my blood at her words, a dry
spasm seemed in my throat, blocking all speech.

"I thought you must have finished by now, and I came to say--I came to
say"--she murmured.

The blood rushed scarlet, staining all the fair skin, across the face
before me, and the bright lips fluttered in uncertain hesitation.

I guessed the situation.

She had come to say to me phrases that seemed quite easy, quite simple
to her, murmuring t