d where I have failed?"

"I do not understand you," he answered.

"You do!" she declared, "and I will know. For years you have been a man
with a shell upon your heart. Every good impulse, every kind thought
seemed withered up. You were absolutely cold, absolutely passionless!
I have worn myself out trying to call you back to your own, to set
the blood flowing once more in your veins, to break for one moment the
barriers which you had set up against Nature herself. Some day, I
felt that it must come--and it has! Who has done it, Wingrave? It is
not--Emily?"

"Emily!" he exclaimed. "I have not seen her for months. She has no
interest for me--she never had."

"Then tell me who it is!"

"Nature unaided," he answered carelessly. "Human intervention was not
necessary. It was the swing of the pendulum, Ruth, the eternal law
which mocks our craving for content. I had no sooner succeeded in my new
capacity--than the old man crept out."

"But Nature has her weapons always," she protested. "Wingrave, was it
the child?"

He touched the electric bell. Taking her hands, he bent down and kissed
them.

"Dear lady," he said, "goodbye--good fortune! Conquer new worlds, and
remember--white is your color, and Paquin your one modiste. Morrison,
Lady Barrington's carriage."

"LOVE SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW"

Mr. Pengarth was loth to depart. He felt that all pretext for lingering
was gone, that he had outstayed his welcome. Yet he found himself
desperately striving for some excuse to prolong an interview which was
to all effects and purposes concluded.

"I will do my best, Sir Wingrave," he said, reverting to the subject of
their interview, "to study Miss Lundy's interests in every way. I will
also see that she has the letter you have left for her within eight days
from now. But if you could see you way to leave some sort of address so
that I should have a chance of communicating with you, if necessary, I
should assume my responsibilities with a lighter heart."

Wingrave gave vent to a little gesture of annoyance.

"My dear sir," he said, "surely I have been explicit enough. I have told
you that, within a week from now, I shall be practically dead. I shall
never return to England--you will never see me again. I have given life
here a fair trial, and found it a failure. I am going to make a new
experiment--and it is going to be in an unexplored country. You could
not reach me there through the post. You, I think, would s