p with which the
whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!"

His short-lived, most unmirthful mirth has died from him, he has laid a
hand upon the table near him to steady himself.

"You are candid, on my soul," says he slowly.

She moves quickly towards the door, her velvet skirt sweeping over his
feet as she goes by--the perfume of the violets lying in her bosom
reaches him.

Hardly knowing his own meaning, he puts out his hand and catches her by
her naked arm, just where the long glove ceases above the elbow.

"Isabel, give me this dance," says he a little wildly.

"_No!_"

She shakes herself free of him. A moment her eyes blaze into his. "No!"
she says again, trembling from head to foot. Another moment, and the
door has closed behind her.

CHAPTER XIV.

"The old, old pain of earth."

It is now close upon midnight--that midnight of the warmer months when
day sets its light finger on the fringes of it. There is a sighing
through the woods, a murmur from the everlasting sea, and though Diana
still rides high in heaven with her handmaiden Venus by her side, yet in
a little while her glory will be departed, and her one rival, the sun,
will push her from her throne.

The gleaming lamps among the trees-are scarcely so bright as they were
an hour ago, the faint sighing of the wind that heralds the morning is
shaking them to and fro. A silly bird has waked, and is chirping in a
foolish fashion among the rhododendrons, where, in a secluded path,
Joyce and Dicky Browne are wandering somewhat aimlessly. Before them
lies a turn in the path that leads presumably into the dark wood,
darkest of all at this hour, and where presumably, too, no one has
ventured, though one should never presume about hidden corners.

"I can't think what you see in him," says Mr. Browne, after a big pause.
"I'd say nothing if his face wasn't so fat, but if I were you, that
would condemn him in my eyes."

"I can't see that his face is fatter than yours," says Miss Kavanagh,
with what she fondly believes perfect indifference.

"Neither is it," says Mr. Browne meekly, "but my dear girl, there lies
the gist of my argument. You have condemned me. All my devotion has been
scouted by you. I don't pretend to be the wreck still that once by your
cruelty you made me, but----"

"Oh, that will do," says Joyce, unfeelingly. "As for Mr. Beauclerk, I
don't know why you should imagine I see anything in him."

"W