small hand, shining with diamonds, that she extended, in
both his, his tone, his eyes speaking volumes.

"Good-evening, Mr. Thorndyke. Will you be seated? Quite chilly for
September, is it not, to-night?"

She sank gracefully back into her easy-chair, the gas-light streaming
over her dusk, Canadian loveliness. She made an effort to disengage her
hand, which he still held fast, but he refused to let it go.

"No, Norine! let me keep it. Oh, love, remember it was once all mine.
Norine! Norine! on my knees I implore your forgiveness for the past!"

He actually sank on one knee before her, covering the hand he held with
passionate kisses. No acting here; that was plain, at least. The
infatuated man meant every word he said.

"Forgive me, Norine! I know that I have sinned to you beyond all pardon,
but if you knew how I have suffered, how the memory of my crime has made
my whole life miserable, how, to drown the torture of memory, I fled to
the wine-cup and the gambling-table, and to--"

"Marriage with Miss Helen Holmes, heiress and belle. Oh, I know it all,
Mr. Thorndyke. Pray get up. Gentlemen never go on their knees nowadays
except in melodrama. Get up Mr. Thorndyke; let go my hand and sit down
like a rational being. I insist upon it."

"A rational being!" he repeated. "I have ceased to be that since your
return. It is my madness, Norine, to love you as I never loved any women
before in my life."

She laughed, toying with the fan she held.

"My dear Mr. Thorndyke, I remember perfectly well what an absolute fool
I was in the days of our acquaintanceship four years ago. Even such a
statement as that might have been swallowed whole. But it _is_ four
years ago, and--you will pardon me--I know what brilliant talent
Laurence Thorndyke has for graceful fiction. To how many ladies in the
course of his thirty years of life has he made that ardent declaration,
I wonder?"

"You do not believe me?"

"I do not."

"Norine, I swear--"

"Hush-h-h! pray don't perjure yourself. Was it to tell me this you came
here this evening, Mr. Thorndyke?"

"To tell you, Norine, what I am sure you do not know. What I never knew
myself until of late, that you and you alone have ever been my wife;
that our marriage _was_ a marriage, legal and true--that you, not Helen,
are my lawful wife. To tell you this and much more, if you will listen.
From my soul I have repented of the past; how bitterly, none may know. I
left you--great Heaven! I