tle insignificant girl who had once been her
hated rival in Rome, should have developed into the peerlessly
beautiful woman, whom all men admired and reverenced, and whom Gerald
Goddard now idolized.

An hour passed, during which she lay where she had fallen and almost
benumbed by her misery.

Then there came a knock upon her door, which was immediately opened,
and Mr. Goddard entered the room.

He was still very pale, but grave and self-contained.

The woman started to a sitting posture, exclaiming, in an unnatural
voice:

"What do you want here?"

"I have come, Anna, to talk over with you the events of the
morning--to ask you to try to control yourself, and look at our
peculiar situation with calmness and practical common sense," he
calmly replied.

"Well?" was all the response vouchsafed, as he paused an instant.

"I have not come to offer any excuses for myself, or for what you
overheard this morning," he thoughtfully resumed; "indeed, I have none
to offer--my whole life, I own, has, as Isabel rightly said, been a
failure thus far, and no one save myself is to blame for the fact. Do
not sneer, Anna," he interposed, as her lips curled back from her
dazzling teeth, which he saw were tightly locked with the effort she
was making at self-control. "I have been thoroughly humiliated for
the first time in my life--I have been made to see myself as I am, and
I have reached a point where I am willing to make an effort to atone,
as far as may be, for some of the wrongs of which I have been guilty.
Will you help me, Anna?"

Again he paused, but this time his companion did not deign to avail
herself of the opportunity to reply, if, indeed, she was able to do
so.

She had not once removed her glittering eyes from his face, and her
steady, inscrutable look gave him an uncanny sensation that was
anything but agreeable.

"I have come to propose that we avail ourselves of the only remedy
that seems practicable to relieve our peculiar situation," he
continued, seeing she was waiting for him to go on. "I will apply to
have the tie which binds me to Isabel annulled, with all possible
secrecy--it can be done in the West without any notoriety; then I will
make you my legal wife, as you have so often asked me to do, and we
will go abroad again, where we will try to live out the remainder of
our lives to some better purpose than we have done heretofore. I ask
you again, will you try to help me? It is not going to be an easy