ls from his lips, a certain tenderness
characterises both his face and tone--"if only for _my_ sake."

At this, the silent figure in the doorway draws her breath, painfully,
and catches hold of the lintel as though to steady herself. Her lips
tremble, a momentary fear that she may be going to faint terrifies her;
then a voice, cold and uncompromising falling on her ears, restores her
to something like composure.

"Do not ask me that, anything but that;" it is Dulce who is speaking. "I
cannot."

At this, the girl standing in the doorway, as though unable to endure
more, comes slowly forward, and advances until she is within the full
glare of the lamplight. It is Portia. She is deadly pale; and her black
robes clinging round her render the pallor of her face even more
ghastly. She has raised one hand, and is trifling nervously with the
string of pearls that always lies round her white throat; she does not
look at Fabian, not even for one instant does she permit her eyes to
seek his, but lets them rest on Dulce, sadly, reproachfully.

"Why can you not forgive me?" she says; "is not your revenge complete?
You have, indeed, kept your word. Now that I am sad at heart, why will
you not try to forgive?"

"Yes--forgive." It is Fabian who says this; he lays his hand upon
Dulce's arm, and regards her earnestly.

"_You_ ask me to forgive--_you_! You would have me be kind to this
traitress!" returns she, passionately, glancing back at Portia, over her
shoulder, with angry eyes. "Do you forgive her yourself?"

"I am beyond the pale of forgiveness so far as he is concerned," says
Portia, slowly. "It is to you I appeal. I have loved you well, that
should count for something. As for your brother, I understand--I know
that he will never forgive and never forget!"

"You are right," says Fabian, addressing her for the first time, yet
without letting his glance meet hers, "I shall _never forget_!"

A sob rises in Portia's throat; there is a terrible sadness in his tone,
the more terrible because of the stern restraint he has laid upon
himself.

"Go to her," he says to Dulce, and the girl who has never disobeyed a
wish of his in all her life goes up to Portia and lays her hand in
hers.

Palm to palm, slender hands clasped close together, they move toward the
door; Dulce, with bent head, trying to stay the mournful tears that are
falling silently, one by one, down her cheeks; Portia, with head erect,
but with an anguish in her l