appears to think he is only a
joke or a mistake; but I have made up my mind never to laugh at him at
all as the other girls do. It seems so unkind, and surely he must feel
it."

She never did laugh at him, and sometimes even tried to talk to him, and
once drew him out so far in an artful, innocent way, that he told her
something of his medical failure and the reasons for it, manifestly
ashamed of the story as he related it, and yet telling it so well in a
few clumsy, rather disconnected sentences, that when he had finished her
eyelashes were wet and she broke into a little shuddering sigh.

"Oh!" she said, "I don't think you are to blame, really. I have often
thought that I could never, never bear to do such things, though, of
course, if there was no one to do them it would be dreadful; but----"

"Yes," said Tom, "there it is. Someone must do it, and I know I'm a
confounded coward and ninny, but--but I couldn't." And he looked
overwhelmed with humiliation.

"But after all," she said, in the soft voice which had always the sound
of appeal in it, "after all, I'm sure it was because you have a kind
heart, and a kind heart is worth a great deal. You will do something
else."

"There is nothing else for me to do," he said, mournfully; "nothing that
won't disgrace the rest, they tell me."

It was small wonder that this was his final undoing, though neither was
to blame. Certainly no fault could be attached to the young creature who
meant to be kind to him, as it was her nature to be to all surrounding
her; and surely Tom's great and final blunder arose from no presumption
on his part. He had never thought of aspiring to the proud position with
regard to her which Romaine and De Courcy seemed to occupy by natural
right. It was only now and then, when they were unavoidably engaged, that
he had the courage to offer his services as messenger or escort, but even
those rare pleasures were a little too much for him. He was so unused to
such privileges that they intoxicated him and set his mind in a whirl
which prevented his thinking clearly, or, indeed, ever thinking at all
sometimes.

Even when it was all over, he scarcely knew how he had been betrayed into
the weakness he was guilty of. It was not like him to lose sight of his
manifold imperfections; but for once they were swept out of his mind by a
momentary madness.

It was on the occasion of a ball at the Delisle House. The Delisle House
was the principal hotel, and al