xcept to allow
her gaze to travel to the floor.

"You are Miss Rose Delano?" said Ruth, as she came a step nearer.

"What of that?" Asked the girl, lifelessly, her dull eyes wandering
everywhere but to the face of her strange interlocutor.

"I am Ruth Levice, a friend of Dr. Kemp. Will that introduction be
enough to make you shake hands with me?"

She advanced toward her, holding out her hand. A burning flame shot
across Rose Delano's face, and she shrank farther back among her
pillows.

"No," she said, putting up a repellent hand; "it is not enough. Do not
touch me, or you will regret it. You must not, I say." She arose quickly
from her chair and stood at bay, regarding Ruth. The latter, taller than
she by head and shoulders, looked down at her smiling.

"I know no reason why I must not," she replied gently.

"You do not know me."

"No; but I know of you."

"Then why did you come; why don't you go?" The blue eyes looked with
passionate resentment at her.

"Because I have come to see you; because I wish to shake hands with
you."

"Why?"

"Why?"

"Why do you wish to do that?"

"Because I wish to be your friend. May we not be friends? I am not much
older than you, I think."

"You are centuries younger. Who sent you here? Dr. Kemp?"

"No one sent me; I came of my own free will."

"Then go as you came."

"No."

She stood gracefully and quietly before her. Rose Delano moved farther
from her, as if to escape her grave brown eyes.

"You do not know what you are doing," cried the girl, excitedly; "have
you no father or mother, no one to tell you what a girl should not do?"

"I have both; but I have also a friend,--Dr. Kemp."

"He is my friend too," affirmed Rose, tremulously.

"Then we have one good thing in common; and since he is my friend and
yours, why should we not be friends?"

"Because he is a man, and you are a woman. He has then told you my
story?"

"Yes."

"And you feel yourself unharmed in coming here--to such a creature as
I?"

"I feel nothing but pity for you; I do not blame you. But, oh, little
one, I do so grieve for you because you won't believe that the world is
not all merciless. Come, give me your hand."

"No," she said, clasping her hands behind her and retreating as the
other advanced; "go away, please. You are very good, but you are very
foolish. Bad as I am, however, I shall not let you harm yourself more;
leave my room, please."

"Not till I have held your hands