, his from her, if he might, he questioned:

"What sort of a man is Prince Pollona?"

"Oh," she cried warmly, "the best! a kind, good, honorable friend. He
deserves something better than the horrors I have put him through, poor
dear!"

"He seemed very devoted to you," Bulstrode said, "if one could judge."

Not without pride she admitted that he was, and that the Prince had
always wanted to marry her. "I might have married him," she repeated,
"easily a score of times. But how it appears to interest you----" she
said jealously.

"Only as he interests you," replied Bulstrode, "and what you tell me is
a great satisfaction. To be the Princess Pollona is an honor that many
women would be glad to have conferred upon them." Felicia Warren's
good looks were undeniable, her _genre_ was exquisite, and Bulstrode,
again with no effort, believed all she said. Princes had married far
less royal-looking women, of far more humble antecedents than Felicia
Warren.

"Oh, his rank didn't dazzle me," she murmured absently, "they seem all
alike, and when they find out that I am not a certain kind they ask me
to marry them... But if I could only get back to the Mill on the Rose,
Mr. Bulstrode! If I might again see it as I used, if I could see you
there as I used to see you--walk by your side; row with you on the
river; if I could hear the wheel again as I used to hear it, then"--her
voice was delicious, a very note of the river of which she spoke. Oh,
she must act well, there was no doubt about that; no wonder she had
been a success: "If I might walk there with you--titles, even my art
and all the rest"--she did not apparently dare to look at him as she
spoke, but fixed her eyes across the room as if she saw back twelve
years into ----shire ... "if I could _only, only_ go back again with
you!"

In spite of himself, carried away by her voice, Bulstrode said:

"You shall, you shall go back with me!"

"Oh, Mr. Bulstrode," she gave a little cry and caught his hand,
steadying herself by the act.

"Wait," he murmured, "wait, let me think it all out." And, as she had
done, Bulstrode walked over to the window, to the balcony where the
fresh air met his face, where the breath from the sea fanned him,
blended with the scent of the meadow. Before Bulstrode the first
reflection of the morning lay like silver on the sea.

When he finally went back into the room, Felicia Warren had not moved.
Just as he left her, she sat, deep back