eat longing, and forced himself to think of her
alone. It cut him like a knife to see that she drew away from him.

"Don't shrink from me, Christine," he said. "If it distresses you for me
to speak I can be silent. I was obliged to tell you, but there it can
stop. I have laid the offering of my love and life before you and there
it is for you to take or leave. Perhaps I have startled you. If you will
only think about it and try to get used to the idea--"

But Christine had found her voice.

"I cannot think of it!" she cried. "I utterly refuse to think of it. Oh,
I am more miserable than ever I have been yet! If I am to make you
unhappy--if I am to spoil your life--"

"You have beautified and glorified and crowned it with love, Christine.
I should have gone to my grave without it, if you had not given it to
me. It is a godlike thing to feel what I feel for you. Come what may
I shall never be sorry for it. You have nothing to reproach yourself
with."

Christine was very pale. She felt herself trembling as she sank into a
chair and clasped her hands about her knee. Noel too sat down, but
farther away from her than he had been before.

"I entreat you not to be distressed--" he began, but she interrupted
him.

"Oh, I feel--I cannot tell you what I feel," she said. "Was ever a woman
at once so honored and so shamed? How could I give to any man a ruined
life like mine, and yet God knows how it is sweet to me to know you have
this feeling for me--to know that I may still arouse in such a heart as
yours this highest, holiest, purest, best of all the heart can give. Oh,
I pray God to let you feel and know the joy it is to me--and yet I'd
rather cut off my right hand than listen even to the thought of marrying
you."

Noel could not understand her. The look in her face completely baffled
him.

"Christine," he said, "there is but one thing to do. On one thing alone
the whole matter rests. Look at me."

His voice was resolute, though it was so gentle, and in obedience to its
bidding Christine raised her eyes to his.

"Answer me this, Christine. Do you love me?"

And looking straight into his eyes she answered:

"No."

Noel rose from his seat and crossed over to the fire, where he stood
with his back toward her. He did not see the passionate gesture with
which she strained her clasped hands to her breast a moment and then
stretched them out toward him. In a second she withdrew them and let
them fall in her lap. Her