struggling with another feeling that she was not, and
took a long look at her lovely face. How he yearned to paint it, and
perhaps, for the asking, he might!

"One thing more," he said at last, feeling that he must get it over,
"I have never heard your first name, will you not tell me what it is?"

"Christine," she said, and as he repeated it gently she exclaimed:

"Oh, it is truly a pleasant thing to hear it. I have not heard it since
so long a time. Robert do say it is too, vat you call--I forget, but he
call me Chrissy, and my own name do seem a thing forgot."

"Good-night, Christine," he said, feeling sure he might venture this
once, "and do not think I have forgotten you, if you don't see me soon.
I am very busy--my friends claim my spare time--I live very far away,
but if you are ever in any trouble, little or big, and you or your
husband should need me, send a line to my club, and I will come the
instant I receive it. Good-by, be a good, brave girl, and don't forget
me."

During all these parting words she had let him hold her little hand. He
wanted to kiss it before dropping it, for it seemed to him unlikely that
he would ever touch it again. He resisted this, however, and merely said
good-by again and left her.

Looking back before he closed the front door he could see her in the
pretty drawing-room seated on the rug before the fire, her silk
draperies crushed beneath her, and holding all the kittens in her lap,
the mother-cat sitting by, and looking on contentedly. It was upon this
picture that he closed the door.

Just outside he met Dallas, who apologized for being late. He had stayed
for the ballet, he said, knowing his wife was not alone. He asked Noel
to come again, but got no very satisfactory response.

IV.

During the months that followed Mrs. Dallas did not see Noel again,
and the news accidentally reached her that he had gone abroad with
his mother and sisters. He had called on her once, probably on the
eve of his departure, but she had been ill that evening, and the servant
had excused her. It had been reported to her that he had inquired
particularly whether her illness was serious and had been informed that
it was not. That was the last she had heard of him, until she had made
some acquaintances in the society in which he was known, and then she
occasionally heard his name mentioned and gained the information alluded
to.

Her introduction into this society had come about very