what I will do, and what I won't--I won't marry you until
the old Buddy has been dead for some months, and I won't ever live in
this house. We'll find another, that looks to the sun, and I'll furnish
it in my own way, with my own fads. Buddy gave me lots of treasures for
my own rooms. They are mine whatever I do, and I must have room for
them. I have five hundred a year, you know, Martin. Shall you be able
to afford a better house with an extra five hundred?"

"I can afford it now. You are quite right, it would be better to move,
but I'm not going to touch a halfpenny of your money, sweetheart. You
must keep that for yourself. It will seem little enough."

"It takes a great _deal_ to dress me!" sighed Grizel plaintively.
"Can't think why, when I'm so thin. And my lame dogs! I must squeeze
out something for them. Well! there are some good pictures, and curios,
and jewels. They are mine, too. With an occasional visit to the
pawnshop, we'll last out, somehow, till I'm fifty. Won't be so long
either! But, Martin! in heaven's name, _Who_ will order the dinners?"

"Perhaps--er--Katrine!" Martin's voice sounded nervous and miserable.
Grizel had thought of Juliet, but she had not mentioned Katrine, the
obvious, living difficulty. He hated to remind her of it; hated to feel
that his home was not his own.

"Yes. Perhaps--er--Katrine," returned Grizel sweetly. She smiled into
space, her face swept clear of expression, while Martin searched vainly
for the hidden thought.

"I'm--sorry, darling! I hate the thought of a third person. It would
be so perfect alone, but--Katrine has given me her youth, and there is
nowhere else she could go. I should be a cur if I turned her out."

"An ungrateful cur. We'll never do it. _I_ wouldn't, if you could!"

"And do you think,--could you manage to be happy with her here, always
with us?"

"I think," pronounced Grizel judicially, "I might stand it for a week.
With grace! Then I'd poison her with lingering torture." She turned to
him as she spoke, eyes shining, lips apart, deliberately inviting
caress, but when he leaped to take her in his arms she waved him away.
"No! This is business. Let us finish this first."

"Oh, Bewildering Woman! Have you the least idea what you mean! Shall I
ever understand you, to the end of my life? It's a choice then between
being a cur, and having you hung as a murderess. How do you reconcile
that with your statement that _you_