ely simple in its utterance, otherwise she detects
the poor chicanery, and resents the meanness of it. She resents it with
unutterable sickness of soul, for it is the language of what were to her
the holiest hours of her existence, which is thus hypocritically used
to blind and rock her in a cradle of deception. If corrupt, she maybe
brought to answer to it all the same, and she will do her part of the
play, and babble words, and fret and pout deliciously; and the old days
will seem to be revived, when both know they are dead; and she will
thereby gain any advantage she is seeking.

But Dahlia's sorrow was deep: her heart was sound. She did not even
perceive the opportunity offered to her for a wily performance. She
felt the hollowness of his speech, and no more; and she said, "Good-bye,
Edward."

He had been on one knee. Springing cheerfully to his feet, "Good-bye,
darling," he said. "But I must see her sit to table first. Such a
wretched dinner for her!" and he mumbled, "By Jove, I suppose I shan't
get any at all myself!" His watch confirmed it to him that any dinner
which had been provided for him at the Club would be spoilt.

"Never mind," he said aloud, and examined the roast-beef ruefully,
thinking that, doubtless, it being more than an hour behind the
appointed dinner-time at the Club, his guest must now be gone.

For a minute or so he gazed at the mournful spectacle. The potatoes
looked as if they had committed suicide in their own steam. There were
mashed turnips, with a glazed surface, like the bright bottom of a tin
pan. One block of bread was by the lonely plate. Neither hot nor cold,
the whole aspect of the dinner-table resisted and repelled the gaze, and
made no pretensions to allure it.

The thought of partaking of this repast endowed him with a critical
appreciation of its character, and a gush of charitable emotion for
the poor girl who had such miserable dishes awaiting her, arrested the
philosophic reproof which he could have administered to one that knew
so little how a dinner of any sort should be treated. He strode to the
windows, pulled down the blind he had previously raised, rang the bell,
and said,--

"Dahlia, there--I'm going to dine with you, my love. I've rung the bell
for more candles. The room shivers. That girl will see you, if you don't
take care. Where is the key of the cupboard? We must have some wine out.
The champagne, at all events, won't be flat."

He commenced humming the