er time. Besides, it must be this evening. I've
written."

"To her? To tell her?"

"No," Allida answered; "not to her." And she added, "I don't love her."

"Your mother?"

"This is my dying confession, so I will say the truth. No, I don't love
her. She has made me so unhappy--made life so ugly."

"Then you wrote to some one whom you do love?"

"Yes," said Allida, after another pause. Her hat had loosened as she
leaned her head back, and her disordered hair was about her face; she
still kept her eyes closed with her expression of weary abandonment to
the peace of confession.

He looked at her keenly, with most intent interest, most intent pity,
and yet with a flicker of amusement in the look. She could do it. He
believed her. Yet it would be as absurd as it would be tragic if she
did. It wasn't a face made for tragedy; it had strayed into it by
mistake.

"This some one you love," he said gently, "will it not hurt them
terribly? Have you thought of that?"

He saw the tears come. They rolled slowly down her cheeks. She faintly
whispered:

"He doesn't love me."

Haldicott could feel no amusement now, the pity was too great. He put
his other hand on the hand he held.

"Used he to love you?" he asked.

"No," said Allida; "he never loved me."

For a moment Haldicott struggled with a half-nervous wish to laugh;
relief was in the wish.

"And he knows that you love him?" he controlled his voice to ask.

"He will--when he gets my letter."

"Poor devil!" ejaculated Haldicott.

"Oh, you don't understand!" cried Allida. She opened her eyes and sat
upright, drawing her hand from his. "How could you understand? You think
it's a sort of vengeance I'm taking--for his not loving me. I can't drag
myself through explanations, indeed I can't. Of course I see that my
tragedy to you must be almost farce. I must go. Why should I have told
you anything? I am desecrating it all, making it all grotesque, by being
still alive."

"No, no; you mustn't go yet," said Haldicott, seizing her hand firmly,
yet with not too obvious a restraint. "You mustn't go, not at peace with
me. You have all the evening still before you,--it's not six yet,--and
it doesn't take long to kill one's self with poison. Trust me. You must
trust me. Don't think about its being grotesque; most things are in
certain aspects. I think that we are both behaving very naturally,
considering the circumstances. The circumstances, I grant you, are a
little grot