"You are a strange woman. You make it very hard."

"I have no alternative. The harder I make it, the better for your peace
of mind. Once you are angry with me, once you are convinced that I am a
hopeless puzzle, this fancy you call love will evaporate."

"Do not believe that."

"I never intended that you should see me again, and yet, against my
better judgment, I have bared my face to you upon a simple request. I am
not without some vanity. Men have called me beautiful. But, oh! it is a
sinister beauty; it has brought good to no one, least of all to its
owner. You met Mrs. Sandford in Naples. Tell me what she said."

He sought refuge in silence.

"Did she not earnestly warn you against me?"

"Yes," reluctantly.

"And yet you would not heed her warning?" sadly.

"I have told you that I am mad."

"I am coming to believe it. There are two of us. That dinner! And out of
an innocent prank comes this! Folly, always folly!" And as she
remembered the piece of folly she was about to start out upon, she
laughed. "Mad? Yes. Only, to your madness there is some reason; to mine,
none."

"So you sometimes recollect that night? You have not forgotten?"

"No. The pleasure I derived has frequently returned to my mind."

"Ah, if only you would tell me what prevents friendship between us."

"You say you love me; is that not answer enough? Love and friendship are
as separate as the two poles; and you are man enough of the world to
know that. I have no wish to wreck your life nor to make mine more
miserable. Well, I will tell you this: there is a barrier between us--a
barrier which only death can tear down or break asunder. Give up all
idea, all thought of me. You will only waste your time. Come; is your
love strong enough to offer a single sacrifice?"

"Not if it is to give you up."

"Very well. I see, then, that I must submit to this added persecution. I
can not force you."

"So long as I live I shall go on dreaming of you. So long as you keep me
in darkness as to your trouble I shall pursue you. Oh, do not worry
about persecution. I shall only seek to be near you."

"Good night," she said, "and good-by!" She wound the veil round her
face, took half a dozen steps, halted and turned, then went on, beyond
the light, into the dark.

How long Hillard stood by the steps of the church, watching that part of
the darkness through which she had disappeared, he never knew. Merrihew
tapped him on the arm.

"Wake up, Jack, m