ant him
an interview. She replied at once that it would please her very much to
see him on the following afternoon--she was going to Scotland with her
father in a week, if Parliament had risen by that time.

He came to her. She was alone in the drawing room where she had always
received him previously.

The servant had scarcely left the room before he had told her he had
come to tell her that he loved her--to ask her if he might hope to have
some of her love in return.

He had not seated himself, nor had she. They remained standing together
in the middle of the room. He had not even retained her hand.

"Why have you come to me--to _me_?" she asked him. Her face was pale and
her lips, when he had been speaking to her, were firmly set.

"I have come to you, not because I am worthy of the priceless gift of
your love," said he, "but because you have taught me not merely to love
you--you have taught me what love itself is. You have saved my soul."

"No, no! do not say that; it pains me," she cried.

"I cannot but say it; it is the truth. You have saved me from a
degradation such as you could not understand. Great God! how should I
feel to-day if you had not come forward to save me?"

He walked away from her. He stood with his back turned to her, looking
out of the window.

She remained where he had left her. She did not speak. Why should she
speak?

He suddenly faced her once again. The expression upon his face
astonished her. She had never before seen a man so completely in the
power of a strong emotion. She saw him making the attempt to speak, but
not succeeding for some time. Her heart was full of pity for him.

"You--you cannot understand," he managed to say. "You cannot understand,
and I cannot, I dare not, try to explain anything of the peril from
which you snatched me. You know nothing of the baseness, the cruelty, of
a man who allows himself to be swayed by his own passions. But you saved
me--you saved me!"

"I thank God for that," she said slowly. "But you must not come to me to
ask me for my love. It is not to me you should come. It is for her who
was ready to sacrifice everything for you. You must go to her when the
time comes, not now--she has not recovered from her shock."

"You know--she has told you?"

"I knew all that terrible story--that pitiful story--before I heard it
from her lips."

"And yet--yet--you could speak to me--you could be with me day after
day?"

"Oh, I know what you would