sistent persecutor. I
remember nothing now but the crowned days of our childhood, the rosy dawn
of my manhood, where your golden head shone my Morning Star. I hurl away
all barriers and remember only the one dream of my life--my deathless,
unwavering love for you. Oh, Irene! Irene! why have you locked that rigid
cold face of yours against me? In the hallowed days of old you nestled your
dear hands into mine, and pressed your curls against my cheek, and gave me
comfort in your pure, warm, girlish affection; how can you snatch your
frozen fingers from mine now, as though my touch were contamination? Be
yourself once more--give me one drop from the old overflowing fountain. I
am a lonely man; and my proud, bitter heart hungers for one of your gentle
words, one of your sweet, priceless smiles. Irene, look at me! Give it to
me?"

He sat down on the step at her feet, and raised his dark magnetic face,
glowing with the love which had so long burned undimmed, his lofty full
forehead wearing a strange flush.

She dared not meet his eye, and drooped her head on her palms, shrinking
from the scorching furnace of trial, whose red jaws yawned to receive her.
He waited a moment, and his low mellow voice rose to a stormy key.

"Irene, you are kind and merciful to the poor wretches in the Row.
Poverty--nay, crime, does not frighten away your compassion for them! Why
are you hard and cruelly haughty only to me?"

"You do not need my sympathy, Mr. Aubrey, and congratulations on your great
success would not come gracefully from my lips. Most unfortunate obstacles
long since rendered all intercourse between us impossible still; my feeling
for you has undergone no change. I am, I assure you, still your friend."

It cost her a powerful effort to utter these words, and her voice took a
metallic tone utterly foreign to it. Her heart writhed, bled and moaned in
the grip of her steely purpose, but she endured all calmly--relaxing not
one jot of her bitter resolution.

"My friend? Mockery! God defend me from such henceforth. Irene, you loved
me once--nay, don't deny it! You need not blush for the early folly, which,
it seems, you have interred so deeply; and though you scorn to meet me even
as an equal, I know, I feel, that I am worthy of your love--that I
comprehend your strange nature as no one else ever will--that, had such a
privilege been accorded me, I could have kindled your heart, and made you
supremely happy. Cursed barriers have di