hed; but tears were near at hand. Madeleine had turned her back
on her, and stood buttoning her jacket, with a red, exasperated face.

"I shall not answer you," she said. "You have worked yourself into such
a state that you don't know what you're saying. All the same, I think
you might try to curb your tongue. I have done nothing to you--but be
kind to you."

"Kind to me? Do you call it kind to come here and try to set me against
the man I love best in the world? And who loves me best, too. Yes; he
does. He would never have gone, if he hadn't been forced to--if I
hadn't been a hindrance to him--a drag on him."

"It makes me ashamed of my sex to hear you say such things. That a
woman can so far lose her pride as to----"

"Oh, other women do it in other ways. Do you think I haven't seen how
you have been trying to make some one here like you?--doing your
utmost, without any thoughts of pride or self-respect.--And how you
have failed? Yes, failed. And if you don't believe me, ask him
yourself--ask him who it is that could bring him to her, just by
raising her finger. It's to me he would come, not to you--to me who
have never given him look or thought."

Madeleine paled, then went scarlet. "That's a direct untruth. You!--and
not to egg a man on, if you see he admires you! You know every time a
passer-by looks at you in the street. You feed on such looks--yes, and
return them, too. I have seen you, my lady, looking and being looked
at, by a stranger, in a way no decent woman allows.--For the rest, I'll
trouble you to mind your own business. Whatever I do or don't do, trust
me, I shall at least take care not to make myself the laughing-stock of
the place. Yes, you have only succeeded in making yourself ridiculous.
For while you were cringing before him, and aspiring to die for his
sake, he was making love behind your back to another girl. For the last
six months. Every one knew it, it seems, but you."

She had spoken with unconcealed anger, and now turned to leave the
room. But Louise was at the door before her, and spread herself across
it.

"That's a lie, Madeleine! Of your own making. You shall prove it to me
before you go out of this room. How dare you say such a thing!--how
dare you!"

Madeleine looked at her with cold aversion, and drew back to avoid
touching her.

"Prove it?" she echoed. "Are his own words not proof enough! He told
the whole story that night, just as he had first told all about you. It
had