voice which had no light of
countenance to aid it raised him above the plane of common experience
and made actual to him the feelings he knew only in romantic story. He
could not stir, lest the slightest sound should jar on her speaking.
His breath rose visibly upon the chill air, but the discomfort of the
room was as indifferent to him as to his companion. Clara rose, as it
impelled by mental anguish; she stretched out her band to the
mantel-piece, and so stood, between him and the light, her admirable
figure designed on a glimmering background.

'I know why you say nothing,' she continued, abruptly but without
resentment. 'You cannot use words of sympathy which would be anything
but formal, and you prefer to let me understand that. It is like you.
Oh, you mustn't think I mean the phrase as a reproach. Anything but
that. I mean that you were always honest, and time hasn't changed
you--in that.' A slight, very slight, tremor on the close. 'I'd rather
you behaved to me like your old self. A sham sympathy would drive me
mad.'

'I said nothing,' he replied, 'only because words seemed meaningless.'

'Not only that. You feel for me, I know, because you are not heartless;
but at the same time you obey your reason, which tells you that all I
suffer comes of my own self-will.'

'I should like you to think better of me than that. I'm not one of
those people, I hope, who use every accident to point a moral, and
begin by inventing the moral to suit their own convictions. I know all
the details of your misfortune.'

'Oh, wasn't it cruel that she should take such revenge upon me!' Her
voice rose in unrestrained emotion. 'Just because she envied me that
poor bit of advantage over her! How could I be expected to refuse the
chance that was offered? It would have been no use; she couldn't have
kept the part. And I was so near success. I had never had a chance of
showing what I could do. It wasn't much of a part, really, but it was
the lead, at all events, and it would have made people pay attention to
me. You don't know how strongly I was always drawn to the stage; there
I found the work for which I was meant. And I strove so hard to make my
way. I had no friends, no money. I earned only just enough to supply my
needs. I know what people think about actresses. Mr. Kirkwood, do you
imagine I have been living at my ease, congratulating myself that I had
escaped from all hardships?'

He could not raise his eyes. As she still awaited