his.

They stood thus for a moment under the trees, while the fountain beside
them plashed and trickled musically. The shadow of the church was
slowly creeping towards them over the gravel. The park was deserted,
except by themselves. She tried gently to withdraw her hand, which he
retained.

"Have you nothing to say to me, Yvette?" he asked, with a touch of
reproach in his voice.

She did not answer. He held her fingers, which were slipping from his
grasp, and the shadow touched her feet.

"Yvette, you will at least kiss me goodbye?"

She quickly withdrew her hand from his, shook her head and turned away.
He watched her until she was out of sight, and then walked slowly
towards his rooms on the Boulevard St. Germain. His thoughts were not
comfortable. He was disappointed in Yvette. She was so clever, so
witty, that he had at least expected she would have said something
cutting, which he felt he thoroughly deserved. He had no idea she could
be so heartless. Then his thoughts turned to the nice girl at home.
She, too, had elements in her character that were somewhat bewildering
to an honest young man. Her letters for a long time had been infrequent
and unsatisfactory. It couldn't be possible that she had heard
anything. Still, there is nothing so easy as point-blank denial, and he
would see to that when he reached home.

An explanation awaited him at his rooms on the Boulevard. There was a
foreign stamp on the envelope, and it was from the nice girl. There had
been a mistake, she wrote, but happily she had discovered it before it
was too late. She bitterly reproached herself, taking three pages to do
it in, and on the fourth page he gathered that she would be married by
the time he had the letter. There appeared to be no doubt that the nice
girl fully realized how basely she had treated a talented, hard-
working, aspiring, sterling young man, but the realization had not
seemingly postponed the ringing of the wedding-bells to any appreciable
extent.

Young McLane crushed the letter in his hand and used strong language,
as, indeed, he was perfectly justified in doing. He laughed a hard dry
laugh at the perfidy of woman. Then his thoughts turned towards Yvette.
What a pity it was she was not rich! Like so many other noble, talented
men, he realized he could not marry a poor woman. Suddenly it occurred
to him that Yvette might not be poor. The more he pondered over the
matter the more astonished he was that he had