n't do it; I
have never been so miserable in my life, and if I find I am entirely
helpless to serve you I can never get over the regret."

Felicia Warren turned a little.

"I have found you near disaster," Bulstrode urged, "I must and will see
you to the shore. If you utterly refuse to let me take care of you as
I can and will, will you then," he hesitated, then brought it
out--"Will _you marry_ Prince Pollona?"

She drew from him with a cry, and by what he said she seemed to have
gained sudden strength.

"My God!" she breathed, "You ask me _that_? Oh, it proves, it proves
how less than nothing I am..."

Bulstrode saw he could not, must not undeceive her.

"If you wish me to do _that_," she cried. "Oh, how dreadfully, how
cruelly, it breaks my dream!"

Bulstrode said authoritatively, "Listen! listen for one moment."

The eyes of the girl were dark with defiance; she brushed her hair off
her brow with the back of her hand and stared straight before her.

"--Otherwise," said Bulstrode, "I will remain here; I shall not leave
these rooms till morning and you will then be forced to marry me, and
since you think as you do, since I have told you my secret, ruin
perhaps three lives."

He had her at bay, and for a brief second, he thought she would accept
his menace. But then in a sudden her anger vanished and her face
softened.

"You know," she said, "that, loving you as I do, whatever you tell me
to do, I must. But let me go on with my career. Let me work, let me
work, and be free!"

He said decidedly, "No! You must be protected from yourself; you must
have some one with you who will take care of you as I cannot do. You
must do this for me. Is Pollona distasteful to you?" he pursued, "do
you _hate_ him?"

She made an indifferent shrug of her shoulders.

Bulstrode was watching her face keenly, and after a second said, "No,
you do not hate him. You sent for him to come to you here. He was the
one to whom you turned, Felicia; turn to him now."

As she wavered and hesitated, he insisted, coming close to her:

"You have an ideal, you told me--well we can't get on without them.
Your ideal has helped you, hasn't it? It seems pretty well to have
stood by you. I have one too, you must understand that, and I ask you
to help me to keep it secret now."

"Why, what do you mean?" she questioned breathlessly.

"I mean," he said gravely, "that I am a very lonely man. My days are
absolutely desolate except