e her
unmasked of his stern self-possession. "I beg your pardon," said he, "I
take back that word, recrimination."

It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less
cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head
bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern brow
to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have
set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance.
"Holman," said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, "if in the times
gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to be
any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any reason
why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon what we are
surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I acknowledge that
I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if, after I had been
forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society, and let the
canker-worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and bloom I had
left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did the prospect
of wealth and position, however hollow they may have proved; you who
are the master of both this day, because twelve months ago you forsook
Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach me with them. I do not
reproach you; I only say let the past be forgotten--"

"Impossible," exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an expression
I could not fathom. "What was done at that time cannot be undone. For
you and me there is no future. Yes," he said turning towards her as she
made a slight fluttering move of dissent, "no future; we can bury the
past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if you would wish to if we
could; as we cannot, of course you will not desire even to converse upon
the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to see you once, but I do not wish to
see you again; will you pardon my plain speaking, and release me?"

"I will pardon your plain speaking, but--" Her look said she would not
release him.

He seemed to understand it so, and smiled, but very bitterly. In another
moment he had bowed and gone, and she had returned to her crowd of
adoring sycophants.

CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO

It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of
lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake.
My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from
its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings