ng of entreaty, too, in her
dark eyes, a desire that he will go no further.

But Dysart deliberately disregards it.

"Than Beauclerk?" asks he in a clear, almost cruel tone.

A horrible red rushes up to dye her pretty cheeks, in spite of all her
efforts to subdue it. Great tears of shame and confusion suffuse her
eyes. One little reproachful glance she casts at him, and then:

"Of course," says she, almost vehemently, if a little faintly, her eyes
sinking to the ground.

Dysart stands before her as if stricken into stone. Then the knowledge
that he has hurt her pierces him with a terrible certainty, overcomes
all other thoughts, and drives him to repentance.

"I shouldn't have asked you that," says he bluntly.

"No, no!" says she, acquiescing quickly, "and yet," raising an eager,
lovely face to his, "I hardly know anything about--about myself.
Sometimes I think I like him, sometimes----" She stops abruptly and
looks at him with a pained and frightened gaze. "Do you despise me for
betraying myself like this?"

"No--I want to hear all about it."

"Ah! That is what I want to hear myself. But who is to tell me? Nature
won't. Sometimes I hate him. Last night----"

"Yes, I know. You hated him last night. I don't wish to know why. I am
quite satisfied in that you did so."

"But shall I hate him to-morrow? Oh, yes, I think so--I hope so," cries
she suddenly. "I am tired of it all. He is not a real person, not one
possible to class. He is false--naturally treacherous, and yet----"

She breaks off again very abruptly, and turns to Dysart as if for help.

"Let us forget him," she says, and then in a little frightened way, "Oh,
I wish I could be sure I could forget him!"

"Why can't you?" says Dysart, in his downright way. "It means only a
strong effort after all. If you feel honestly," with an earnest glance
at her, "like that toward him, you must be mad to give him even a corner
in your heart."

"That is it," says she, "there the puzzle begins. I don't know if he
ever has a corner in my heart. He attracts me, but attraction is not
affection, and the heart holds only love and hatred. Indifference is
nothing."

"You can get rid of him finally," says Dysart, boldly, "by giving
yourself to me. That will kill all----"

All he may be going to say is killed on his lips at this moment by two
little wild shrieks of joy that sound right behind his head. Both he and
Joyce turn abruptly in its direction--he with a sense