re my friend, I know, and would help
me if you could. Your love can help me and it does and will, but we are
poor little waifs together--only you can do something to support
yourself, and your mother loves you, while I am utterly helpless and
have no love in all the world except what you give me. Oh, Hannah, you
must never leave me!"

"Where is Mr. Noel--the gentleman you told me of who was so good to
you on the steamer, and afterward came to see you and spoke to you so
kindly?"

"He has forgotten me--at least I suppose so," she said, shaking her
head. "Yes, he was good to me. I think he would be sorry for me. He has
gone back to Europe and taken his mother and sisters. Some one was
speaking of them and said they all loved him so. You and I are more
desolate than most people, Hannah. You have only your mother and me to
love you--and I have only you."

VI.

The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Christine rose to her feet with a
little shiver. There was a mirror not far away, toward which she turned
and surveyed herself from head to foot. As she did so the soft folds of
her Greek drapery settled about her, severe and beautiful. The masses of
her dark hair were drawn into a loose, rich knot pierced by a gold
dagger, and her eyes--so remarkably beautiful in color and expression
that no one ever saw them unimpressed--were clear and steady as they
gazed at the reflected image in front of her.

"I wonder," she said, lifting her bare arms with a sort of conscious
unconsciousness and clasping her hands in a fine pose behind her head,
which she turned slightly to one side, "I wonder if this is the very
last of me--the very last of the Christine who loved to look beautiful
and wear rich clothes and be admired, and who thought that she would one
day be loved."

Turning away from that long look she held out both fair arms to Hannah.

"Come close, close, Hannah," she said, as the plain little teacher, in
her rough dark gown, was drawn into her embrace. "I want to feel some
living thing near my heart to-night, for I am frightened and lonely. I
have told myself good-by. Christine is dead and gone and I have buried
her. I want some one near me in these first moments of my strange new
self. Oh, Hannah, if we could die! Not you--for your mother needs
you--but me. Oh, Hannah," she said, in a strained voice that sounded as
if it were only by an effort that she kept her teeth from chattering,
"if I hadn't you to-night I don