not in it one spark of manly honor or true love.
Don't venture too near it in your coldness and prudence. It has tiger
passions I will not answer for. Give me your hand, and feel how it pants
like a hungry fiend. It will have food, Margaret."

She drew away the hand he grasped, and stood back in the shadow.

"What is it to me?"--in the same measured voice.

Holmes wiped the cold drops from his forehead, a sort of shudder in his
powerful frame. He stood a moment looking into the fire, his head
dropped on his arm.

"Let it be so," he said at last, quietly. "The worn old heart can gnaw
on itself a little longer. I have no mind to whimper over pain."

Something that she saw on the dark sardonic face, as the red gleams
lighted it, made her start convulsively, as if she would go to him; then
controlling herself, she stood silent. He had not seen the
movement,--or, if he saw, did not heed it. He did not care to tame her
now. The firelight flashed and darkened, the crackling wood breaking the
dead silence of the room.

"It does not matter," he said, raising his head, laying his arm over his
strong chest unconsciously, as if to shut in all complaint. "I had an
idle fancy that it would be good on this Christmas night to bare the
secrets of crime and selfishness hidden in here to you,--to suffer your
pure eyes to probe the sorest depths: I thought perhaps they would have
a blessing power. It was an idle fancy. What is my want or crime to
you?"

The answer came slowly, but it did come.

"Nothing to me."

She tried to meet the gaunt face looking down on her with a proud
sadness,--did meet it at last with her meek eyes.

"No, nothing to you. There is no need that I should stay longer, is
there? You made ready to meet me, and have gone through your part well."

"It is no part. I speak God's truth to you as I can."

"I know. There is nothing more for us to say to each other In this
world, then, except good-night. Words--polite words--are bitterer than
death, sometimes. If ever we happen to meet, that courteous smile on
your face will be enough to speak--God's truth for you. Shall we say
good-night now?"

"If you will."

She drew farther into the shadow, leaning on a chair.

He stopped, some sudden thought striking him.

"I have a whim," he said, dreamily, "that I would like to satisfy. It
would be a trifle to you: will you grant it?--for the sake of some old
happy day, long ago?"

She put her hand up to her throa