rn to you in preference? No, you have answered it yourself,
Nevil;--on that day in the boat, when generosity in a man so surprised
me, it seemed a miracle to me; and it was, in its divination. How I thank
my dear brother Roland for saving me the sight of you condemned to fight,
against your conscience! He taught poor M. d'Henriel his lesson. You,
Nevil, were my teacher. And see how it hangs: there was mercy for me in
not having drawn down my father's anger on my heart's beloved. He loved
you. He pitied us. He reproached himself. In his last days he was taught
to suspect our story: perhaps from Roland; perhaps I breathed it without
speaking. He called heaven's blessings on you. He spoke of you with
tears, clutching my hand. He made me feel he would have cried out: "If I
were leaving her with Nevil Beauchamp!" and "Beauchamp," I heard him
murmuring once: "take down Froissart": he named a chapter. It was
curious: if he uttered my name Renee, yours, "Nevil," soon followed. That
was noticed by Roland. Hope for us, he could not have had; as little as
I! But we were his two: his children. I buried him--I thought he would
know our innocence, and now pardon our love. I read your letters, from my
name at the beginning, to yours at the end, and from yours back to mine,
and between the lines, for any doubtful spot: and oh, rash! But I would
not retrace the step for my own sake. I am certain of your love for me,
though . . .' She paused: 'Yes, I am certain of it. And if I am a burden
to you?'

'About as much as the air, which I can't do without since I began to
breathe it,' said Beauchamp, more clear-mindedly now that he supposed he
was addressing a mind, and with a peril to himself that escaped his
vigilance. There was a secret intoxication for him already in the
half-certainty that the step could not be retraced. The idea that he
might reason with her, made her seductive to the heart and head of him.

'I am passably rich, Nevil,' she said. 'I do not care for money, except
that it gives wings. Roland inherits the chateau in Touraine. I have one
in Burgundy, and rentes and shares, my notary informs me.'

'I have money,' said he. His heart began beating violently. He lost sight
of his intention of reasoning. 'Good God! if you were free!'

She faltered: 'At Tourdestelle . . .'

'Yes, and I am unchanged,' Beauchamp cried out. 'Your life there was
horrible, and mine's intolerable.' He stretched his arms cramped like the
yawning of a