can say."

"But we're getting away from mother. Don't you see, Mr. Gordon, that
it would be cruel? And what good would it do? Felix is what he is, and
he'll stay so to the end of the chapter. You can't change him and you
would only spoil mother's happiness in him. Promise me, Mr. Gordon,
that you won't tell her anything about it, that you won't say anything
to her about Felix that would make her unhappy!"

Gordon rose abruptly and walked across the little enclosure and back
again, his black brows drawn together, before he replied.

"It is hard to refuse you anything, Penelope," he said finally,
standing in front of her chair. "You have had so little, and you
deserve so much. I know you are right about this, and I shrink from
hurting her as much as you do. But when I think of Felix and the
course he has deliberately followed, it angers me so that I forget
everything except the retribution he so richly deserves. But you are
right and I give you your promise."

He smiled upon her and gently patted the hand that lay, thin and
feeble-looking, on the arm of her chair. But the smile quickly faded
from his face as he met the mingled wonder and displeasure of her
look.

"I thank you for your promise," she said, "but I am surprised to hear
you speak so bitterly of my brother, when you seem to be so friendly
with him and he has given you such intimate confidence."

Again Gordon walked up and down in the narrow space, his countenance
somber with the intentness of his thought.

"The relations between us are peculiar," he said at last, speaking
more slowly and deliberately than was usual with him. "I wonder if I
could tell you what they are. I wonder if you would believe me, or
think me sane, if I should tell you. Sometime I shall tell you,
Penelope, for you are a broad-minded, strong-souled woman and you will
be able to see that what I am doing has been for the best good of
everybody concerned. But I think not now. No, not yet, not till after
I have worked out my plan. But I want you to know, Penelope, and I
shall never be content until you do understand. For I honor and
admire you more than anyone else I know. If I didn't, perhaps my
feeling about Felix wouldn't be quite so strong. And I'll try to curb
my tongue when I speak about him to you."

Penelope had begun to feel much wearied by the interview, with
its demands upon her emotional strength and the strange, tingling
excitement with which Gordon's presence wrought upo