exclaimed.

Lily rose also, with a quick flash of anger. "If you have come here to
say disagreeable things about Mrs. Hatch----"

"It is only with your relation to Mrs. Hatch that I am concerned."

"My relation to Mrs. Hatch is one I have no reason to be ashamed of. She
has helped me to earn a living when my old friends were quite resigned to
seeing me starve."

"Nonsense! Starvation is not the only alternative. You know you can
always find a home with Gerty till you are independent again."

"You show such an intimate acquaintance with my affairs that I suppose
you mean--till my aunt's legacy is paid?"

"I do mean that; Gerty told me of it," Selden acknowledged without
embarrassment. He was too much in earnest now to feel any false
constraint in speaking his mind.

"But Gerty does not happen to know," Miss Bart rejoined, "that I owe
every penny of that legacy."

"Good God!" Selden exclaimed, startled out of his composure by the
abruptness of the statement.

"Every penny of it, and more too," Lily repeated; "and you now perhaps
see why I prefer to remain with Mrs. Hatch rather than take advantage of
Gerty's kindness. I have no money left, except my small income, and I
must earn something more to keep myself alive."

Selden hesitated a moment; then he rejoined in a quieter tone: "But with
your income and Gerty's--since you allow me to go so far into the details
of the situation--you and she could surely contrive a life together which
would put you beyond the need of having to support yourself. Gerty, I
know, is eager to make such an arrangement, and would be quite happy in
it----"

"But I should not," Miss Bart interposed. "There are many reasons why it
would be neither kind to Gerty nor wise for myself." She paused a moment,
and as he seemed to await a farther explanation, added with a quick lift
of her head: "You will perhaps excuse me from giving you these reasons."

"I have no claim to know them," Selden answered, ignoring her tone; "no
claim to offer any comment or suggestion beyond the one I have already
made. And my right to make that is simply the universal right of a man to
enlighten a woman when he sees her unconsciously placed in a false
position."

Lily smiled. "I suppose," she rejoined, "that by a false position you
mean one outside of what we call society; but you must remember that I
had been excluded from those sacred precincts long before I met Mrs.
Hatch. As far as I can see, there is v