ned my back resolutely on a past devoid of
hope. I am, after a sore struggle, myself again. And my reward, Miss
Bellairs, is to be told that you despise me. Upon my honor, you'll be
despising Simon Stylites next."

"And you wrote and told Miss Travers you were coming!"

"All right. I shall write and toll her I'm not coming. I shall say,
Miss Bellairs, that it seems to me to be an undignified thing----"

"To do what I'm going to do? Thank you, Mr. Ellerton."

"Oh, I forgot."

"The irony of it is that you persuaded me to do it yourself."

"I was a fool; but I didn't know you so well then."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Everything."

"You didn't know yourself, I'm afraid," she remarked. "You thought you
were a man of some--some depth of feeling, some constancy, a man
whose--whose regard a girl would value, instead of being----"

"Just a poor devil who worships the ground you tread on."

Dora laughed scornfully.

"Second edition!" said she. "The first dedicated to Miss Travers."

And then Charlie (and it is thing's like these which shake that faith
in human nature that we try to cling to) said in a low but quite
distinct voice:

"Oh, d----n Miss Travers!"

Dora shot--it almost looked as if something had shot her, as it used,
in old days, Miss Zazel--up from her seat.

"I thought I was talking to a _gentleman_," said she, "I suppose you'll
use that--expression--about me in a week."

"In a good deal less, if you treat me like this," said Charlie, and his
air was one of hopeless misery.

We all recollect that Anne ended by being tolerably kind to wicked King
Richard. After all, Charlie had the same excuse.

"I don't want to be unkind," said Dora more gently.

"I'll do anything in the world to please you."

"Then make papa go straight to Paris, and straight on from Paris," said
Dora, using her power mercilessly.

"Oh, I say, I didn't mean that, Miss Bellairs."

"You said you'd do anything I liked."

Charlie looked at her thoughtfully.

"I suppose you've no pity?" he inquired.

"For you? Not a bit,"

"You probably don't know how beautiful you are?"

"Don't be foolish, and--and impertinent."

She was standing opposite to him. With a sudden motion, he sprang
forward, fell on one knee, seized her ungloved hand, covered it with
kisses, sprang up, and hastened away, crying as he went:

"All right. I'll do it."

Dora stood where he left her. First she looked at her hand, then at
Charlie