nner. "The truth is," he said, "that I am afraid I care only in the
second place for Roderick's holding up his head. What I care for in the
first place is your happiness."

"I don't know why that should be," she answered. "I have certainly
done nothing to make you so much my friend. If you were to tell me you
intended to leave us to-morrow, I am afraid that I should not venture
to ask you to stay. But whether you go or stay, let us not talk of
Roderick!"

"But that," said Rowland, "does n't answer my question. Is he better?"

"No!" she said, and turned away.

He was careful not to tell her that he intended to leave them. One day,
shortly after this, as the two young men sat at the inn-door watching
the sunset, which on that evening was very striking and lurid, Rowland
made an attempt to sound his companion's present sentiment touching
Christina Light. "I wonder where she is," he said, "and what sort of a
life she is leading her prince."

Roderick at first made no response. He was watching a figure on
the summit of some distant rocks, opposite to them. The figure was
apparently descending into the valley, and in relief against the crimson
screen of the western sky, it looked gigantic. "Christina Light?"
Roderick at last repeated, as if arousing himself from a reverie. "Where
she is? It 's extraordinary how little I care!"

"Have you, then, completely got over it?"

To this Roderick made no direct reply; he sat brooding a while. "She 's
a humbug!" he presently exclaimed.

"Possibly!" said Rowland. "But I have known worse ones."

"She disappointed me!" Roderick continued in the same tone.

"Had she, then, really given you hopes?"

"Oh, don't recall it!" Roderick cried. "Why the devil should I think
of it? It was only three months ago, but it seems like ten years."
His friend said nothing more, and after a while he went on of his
own accord. "I believed there was a future in it all! She pleased
me--pleased me; and when an artist--such as I was--is pleased, you
know!" And he paused again. "You never saw her as I did; you never heard
her in her great moments. But there is no use talking about that! At
first she would n't regard me seriously; she chaffed me and made light
of me. But at last I forced her to admit I was a great man. Think of
that, sir! Christina Light called me a great man. A great man was what
she was looking for, and we agreed to find our happiness for life in
each other. To please me she promised