he could have borne
it better; but the utter lifeless calm of her voice, the hopeless look
in her beautiful white face, touched his heart--that heart but newly
unwrapped and humanized from its mummifying encasements by the
omnipotent God of Love. Had he, after all, been too coldly calculating
about this human creature of his own flesh and blood? Was there some
insurmountable barrier grown up from his action? For the first moment in
his life he was filled with doubt and fear.

"Zara," he said, anxiously, "tell me, dear child, what you mean? I let
you go on in the 'cheat,' as you call it, because I knew you never would
consent to the bargain, unless you thought it was equal on both sides. I
know your sense of honor, dear, but I calculated, and I thought rightly,
that, Tristram being so in love with you, he would soon undeceive you,
directly you were alone. I never believed a woman could be so cold as to
resist his wonderful charm--Zara--what has happened?--'Won't you tell
me, child?"

But she sat there turned to stone. She had no thought to reproach him.
Her heart and her spirit seemed broken, that was all.

"Zara--would you like me to do anything? Can I explain anything to him?
Can I help you to be happy? I assure you it hurts me awfully, if this
will not turn out all right--Zara," for she had risen a little
unsteadily from her seat beside him. "You cannot be indifferent to him
for ever--he is too splendid a man. Cannot I do anything for you, my
niece?"

Then she looked at him, and her eyes in their deep tragedy seemed to
burn out of her deadly white face.

"No, thank you, my uncle,--there is nothing to be done--everything is
now too late." Then she added in the same monotonous voice, "I am very
tired, I think I will wish you a good night." And with immense dignity,
she left him; and making her excuses with gentle grace to the Duke and
Lady Ethelrida, she glided from the room.

And Francis Markrute, as he watched her, felt his whole being wrung with
emotion and pain.

"My God!" he said to himself. "She is a glorious woman, and it will--it
must--come right--even yet."

And then he set his brain to calculate how he could assist them, and
finally his reasoning powers came back to him, and he comforted himself
with the deductions he made.

She was going away alone with this most desirable young man into the
romantic environment of Wrayth. Human physical passion, to say the least
of it, was too strong to keep them