g since
betrayed the secret. Was it left for him, at this very outset of his
passion, to be the one to tell her? Could he bear to see those frank,
beautiful eyes dimmed with shame and sorrow? His own grew moist.
Another idea began to haunt him. Would it not be wiser, even more
manly, for him--a man over twice her years--to leave her alone with her
secret, and so pass out of her innocent young life as chancefully as he
had entered it? But was it altogether chanceful? Was there not in her
innocent happiness in him a recognition of something in him better than
he had dared to think himself? It was the last conceit of the humility
of love.

He reached his hotel at last, unresolved, perplexed, yet singularly
happy. The clerk handed him, in passing, a business-looking letter,
formally addressed. Without opening it, he took it to his room, and
throwing himself listlessly on a chair by the window again tried to
think. But the atmosphere of his room only recalled to him the
mysterious gift he had found the day before on his pillow. He felt now
with a thrill that it must have been from HER. How did she convey it
there? She would not have intrusted it to Mrs. Barker. The idea
struck him now as distastefully as it seemed improbable. Perhaps she
had been here herself with her companion--the convent sometimes made
that concession to a relative or well-known friend. He recalled the
fact that he had seen Mrs. Barker enter the hotel alone, after the
incident of the opening door, while he was leaning over the balustrade.
It was SHE who was alone THEN, and had recognized his voice; and he had
not known it. She was out again to-day with the procession. A sudden
idea struck him. He glanced quickly at the letter in his hand, and
hurriedly opened it. It contained only three lines, in a large formal
hand, but they sent the swift blood to his cheeks.

"I heard your voice to-day for the third time. I want to hear it
again. I will come at dusk. Do not go out until then."

He sat stupefied. Was it madness, audacity, or a trick? He summoned
the waiter. The letter had been left by a boy from the confectioner's
shop in the next block. He remembered it of old,--a resort for the
young ladies of the convent. Nothing was easier than conveying a
letter in that way. He remembered with a shock of disillusion and
disgust that it was a common device of silly but innocent assignation.
Was he to be the ridiculous accomplice of a s