enerous heart and your kindly nature, to realize that you will
understand something of the turmoil of feelings which at present
dominate my heart."

Poltavo finished reading, and put the letter back on the table; he
walked up and down the room without saying a word, then he turned on her
suddenly.

"Madonna!" he said, in the liquid Southern accents of his--he had spent
his early life in Italy and the address came naturally to him--"if Frank
Doughton were I, would you hesitate?"

A look of alarm came into the girl's eyes; he saw then his mistake. He
had confounded her response to his sympathy with a deeper feeling which
she did not possess. In that one glimpse he saw more than she knew
herself, that of the two Frank was the preferable. He raised his hand
and arrested her stammering speech.

"There is no need to tell me," he smiled; "perhaps some day you will
realize that the love Count Poltavo offered you was the greatest
compliment that has ever been paid to you, for you have inspired the one
passion of my life which is without baseness and without ulterior
motives."

He said this in a tremulous voice, and possibly he believed it. He had
said as much before to women whom he had long since forgotten, but who
carried the memory of his wicked face to their graves.

"Now," he said, briskly, "we must wait for Mr. Doughton's answer."

"He has already answered," she said; "he telephoned me."

He smiled.

"How typically English, almost American, in his hustle; and when is the
happy event to take place?" he bantered.

"Oh, please, don't, don't,"--she raised her hands and covered her
face,--"I hardly know that, even now, I have the strength to carry out
my uncle's wishes."

"But when?" he asked, more soberly.

"In three days. Frank is getting a special licence; we are----" She
hesitated, and he waited.

"We are going to Paris," she said, with a pink flush in her face, "but
Frank wishes that we shall live"--she stopped again, and then went on
almost defiantly--"that we shall live apart, although we shall not be
able to preserve that fact a secret."

He nodded.

"I understand," he said; "therein Mr. Doughton shows an innate delicacy,
which I greatly appreciate."

Again that little sense of resentment swept through her; the patronage
in his tone, the indefinable suggestion of possession was, she thought,
uncalled for. That he should approve of Frank in that possessive manner
was not far removed from an impertin