ude, clumsy confessions of a stained life, which have
drawn the colour and the joy from so many beautiful dreams. She shivered
a little, but she inclined her head to listen.

"Well," she said, "what is it?"

"I have asked another woman to marry me only a few hours ago," he said,
quietly.

Berenice was a proud woman, and for the moment she felt her love for this
man a dried-up and shrivelled thing. She was white to the lips, but she
commanded her voice, and her eyes met his coldly.

"May I inquire into the circumstances--of this--somewhat remarkable
proceeding?" she inquired.

"There is a woman," he said, "whose life I helped to wreck--not in the
orthodox way," he added, with a note of scorn in his tone, "but none the
less effectually. The one recompense I never thought of offering her was
marriage. I have seen that, despite all my efforts to aid her, her life
has been a failure. Her friends have been the wrong sort of friends, her
life the wrong sort of life. What it was that was dragging her downwards
I never guessed, for she, too, in her way, was a proud woman. To-day she
sent for me. What passed between us is her secret as much as mine. I can
only tell you that before I left I had asked her to marry me."

"I think," she said, calmly, "that you need tell me no more."

"There is very little more that I can tell you," he answered. "I
have no affection for her, and she has refused to marry me. But she
remains--between us--irrevocably!"

"You are lucidity itself," she replied. "Will you forgive me if I leave
you? I am scarcely used to this sort of situation, and I should like to
be alone."

"Go by all means, Berenice," he answered. "You and I are better apart.
But there is one thing which I must say to you, and you must hear. What
has passed between you and me is the epitome of the love-making of my
life. You are the only woman whom I have desired to make my wife. You are
the only woman whom I have loved, and shall love until I die. I can make
you no reparation, none is possible! Yet these things are my
justification."

Berenice had turned away. The passionate ring of truth in his tone
arrested her footsteps. She paused. Her heart was beating very fast, her
coldness was all assumed. It was so much happiness to throw away, if
indeed there was a chance. She turned and faced him, nervous, gaunt,
hollow-eyed, the wreck of his former self. Pity triumphed in spite of
herself. What was this leaven of weakness in the