?" says she, half playfully. "That is
taking an unfair advantage, is it not? See," pointing to a seat, "what a
charming resting place! I will make one confession to you. I am tired."

"A meagre one! Beatrice," says he suddenly, "tell me this: are all women
alike? Do none really feel? Is it all fancy--the mere idle emotion of a
moment--the evanescent desire for sensation of one sort or another--of
anger, love, grief, pain, that stirs you now and then? Are none of these
things lasting with you, are they the mere strings on which you play
from time to time, because the hours lie heavy on your hands? It seems
to me----"

"It seems to me that you hardly know what you are saying," said Lady
Swansdown quickly. "Do you think then that women do not feel, do not
suffer as men never do? What wild thoughts torment your brain that you
should put forward so senseless a question?--one that has been answered
satisfactorily thousands of years ago. All the pain, the suffering of
earth lies on the woman's shoulders; it has been so from the
beginning--it shall be so to the end. On being thrust forth from their
Eden, which suffered most do you suppose, Adam or Eve?"

"It is an old story," says he gloomily, "and why should you, of all
people, back it up? You--who----"

"Better leave me out of the question."

"You!"

"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the
back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"

"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I
thought--I believed, that you at least--understood me."

"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and
are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful.
Great heavens! if he only knew--could he then probe, and wound, and
tempt!

"If you do----" begins he--then stops short, and passing her, paces to
and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown
leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears--eyes "wild with
all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this
man--this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.

"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"

There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the
arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does
he mean? To her--to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf,
blind, mad--or only