ng man, "you know it would
always be a happiness to me to serve you."

"Oh, it's not a message or a favor," she said, hastily. "I only wanted
to say something"--she paused in great embarrassment--"but it's even
more queer more unusual, than my coming here."

Faraday made no response, and for a space both were silent. Then she
said, speaking with a peculiar low distinctness:

"The last time I saw you I seemed very disagreeable. I wanted to make
sure of something. I wanted to make sure that you were fond of me--to
surprise it out of you. Well--I did it. You are fond of me. I made you
show it to me." She raised her eyes, brilliant and dark, and looked into
his. "If you were to swear to me now that I was wrong I would know you
were not telling the truth," she said, with proud defiance. "You love
me."

"Yes," said Faraday, slowly, "I do. What then?"

"What then?" she repeated. "Why do you go away--go away from me?"

"Because," he answered, "I am too much of a man to live within sight of
the woman I love and can never hope for."

"Can never hope for?" she exclaimed, aghast. "Are you--are you married?"

The sudden horror on her face was a strange thing for Faraday to see.

"No," he said, "I am not married."

"Then, did she tell you that you never could hope for her?" said Miss.
Genevieve Ryan, in a tremulous voice.

"No. It was not necessary. I knew myself."

"You did yourself a wrong, and her too," she broke out, passionately.
"You should have told her, and given her a chance to say--to say what
she has a right to say, without making her come to you, with her love in
her hand, to offer it to you as if she was afraid you were going to
throw it back in her face. It's bad enough being a woman anyway, but to
have the feelings of a woman, and then have to say a thing like
this--it's--it's--ghastly."

"Genevieve!" breathed Faraday.

"Why don't you understand?" she continued, desperately. "You won't see
it. You make me come here and tell it to you this way. I may be badly
mannered and unconventional, but I have feelings and pride like other
women. But what else could I do?"

Her voice suddenly broke into soft appeal, and she held out her hands
toward him with a gesture as spontaneous in its pleading tenderness as
though made by a child. Faraday was human. He dashed away the chair that
stood between them and clasped the trembling hands in his.

"Why is it," she asked, looking into his face with shining troubled
ey