clear moonlight and crisp air of a
Northern city.

A New England sleighing season was at its height. The streets were
crowded with swift-flying graceful vehicles, the air ringing with bell
music and chimes of voices. Out through the brilliant confusion he went
to the quiet square where the great trees laid a dark tracery of shadow
upon the snow beneath. No thought of the accidents of absence or
company, or any of the chances of everyday life, had occurred to him
before. A carriage stood at the door. He almost stamped with impatience
till the door opened and he was admitted. The change to the warm,
luxurious gloom of the parlors quieted him a little, but he paced up and
down with long strides while he waited. The strong stillness that he had
resolutely maintained was broken down now with a feverish restlessness.

She came at length--it seemed to him forever first--with the rustle and
shimmer of trailing lengths of silk down the long room. A fleecy mist
covered neck and arms, and some miracle of a carriage wrapping lay white
and soft about her face. She did not recognize him in the obscurity; his
message of 'a friend' had not betrayed him. But his voice, with its new,
proud hopefulness, its under vein triumphant and eager, struck her into
a blinding, giddy whirl, in which voice and words were lost. It passed
in a moment, and he was saying, 'And I am free now--honorably free--and
have come where my heart has been, ever since that month on the seaside.
Most gracious and sovereign lady,'--he broke into sudden, almost
mirthful speech, dropping on one knee with a semblance of humility
proved no mockery by the diamond light in the brown eyes and the
reverent throb that came straight from his voice.

She bent over him as he knelt, and drew her cool, soft hands across his
forehead and down his face, and her even, silvery syllables cut like
death:

'Mr. Moore, last night I promised to marry your friend, Captain Morris.'

For the space of a minute stillness like the grave filled the room, and
then all the intense strain of heart and nerve gave way, as the bitter
tide of disappointment broke in and rolled over his future; and without
word or sound he dropped forward at her feet.

She knelt down beside him with a low, bitter cry. It reached his dulled
sense; he rose feebly.

'Forgive me; I have not been myself of late, I think; and this--this was
so sudden,' and he walked away with dull, nerveless tread.

On the table, near