ious, to
his own joy, to his own exaltation, Warkworth was conscious of a new
sincerity flowing in a tempestuous and stormy current through all the
veins of being.

With a sombre passion which already marked an epoch in their relation,
and contained within itself the elements of new and unforeseen
developments, she gazed silently into his face. Then, leaning back in
her chair, she once more held out to him both her hands.

He gave an exclamation of joy, kissed the hands tenderly, and sat down
beside her.

"Now, then, all your cares, all your thoughts, all your griefs are to be
mine--till fate call us. And I have a thousand things to tell you, to
bless you for, to consult you about. There is not a thought in my mind
that you shall not know--bad, good, and indifferent--if you care to turn
out the rag-bag. Shall I begin with the morning--my experiences at the
club, my little nieces at the Zoo?" He laughed, but suddenly grew
serious again. "No, your story first; you owe it me. Let me know all
that concerns you. Your past, your sorrows, ambitions--everything."

He bent to her imperiously. With a faint, broken smile, her hands still
in his, she assented. It was difficult to begin, then difficult to
control the flood of memory; and it had long been dark when Madame
Bornier, coming in to light the lamp and make up the fire, disturbed an
intimate and searching conversation, which had revealed the two natures
to each other with an agitating fulness.

* * * * *

Yet the results of this memorable evening upon Julie Le Breton were
ultimately such as few could have foreseen.

When Warkworth had left her, she went to her own room and sat for a long
while beside the window, gazing at the dark shrubberies of the Cureton
House garden, at the few twinkling, distant lights.

The vague, golden hopes she had cherished through these past months of
effort and scheming were gone forever. Warkworth would marry Aileen
Moffatt, and use her money for an ambitious career. After these weeks
now lying before them--weeks of dangerous intimacy, dangerous
emotion--she and he would become as strangers to each other. He would be
absorbed by his profession and his rich marriage. She would be left
alone to live her life.

A sudden terror of her own weakness overcame her. No, she could not be
alone. She must place a barrier between herself and this--this strange
threatening of illimitable ruin that sometimes rose upon