; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never
answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of
repressed strength that she remembered and liked so well.

"I am surprised to see you here, and so soon," he answered, coldly; "but
I knew we should meet before long."

"The surprise does not seem too charming," Miss Bellasys said, pouting
her scarlet lip as she threw herself into a deep _bergere_ opposite to
the couch on which Livingstone had already sunk down again--he was very
weak and unsteady in his movements still.

Was it by chance or calculation that a fold of her dress disarranged
displayed the slender foot, with its arched instep--set off by the
delicate _brodequin_, a labor of love to the Parisian Crispin--and the
straight, beautifully-turned ankle, cased in dead-white silk? The
latter, I think; for Flora knew how to fall as well as Caesar or
Polyxena, and had studied her part to its minutest shade. It was by the
senses that she had always been most successful in attacking Guy, and
she knew that, in old days, no point of feminine perfection had a
greater attraction for him.

The temptation, if so it was intended, had about as much effect upon him
now as it might have had on weather-beaten St. Simeon Stylites when his
penances had lasted twenty years.

After a minute's silence, during which Flora was gazing intently on her
companion, leaning her chin upon her hand, she spoke again.

"I fear you must have been very ill. How--how changed you are!"

Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his
complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great
hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of
black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense
joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied,

"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have
had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have
ventured on this step."

She was getting very nervous--inexplicably so for her, who generally
kept her head, while she made others lose theirs,

"No. I only wished--" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then
broke off suddenly--"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so
strangely."

His answer came, brief and stern.

"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you
venture to interfere in my concerns so fa