world. That is why it has been my duty to keep away from you, why I
have been forced to leave to others what I would gladly have done
myself. To-night you will understand everything."

"Nothing that you can tell me of my family or myself," she answered,
"will ever make me forget that, whereas of them I know nothing, you have
been my guardian angel. It was you who rescued me from the one person in
this world of whom I have been miserably, hatefully afraid. It was not
my family who saved me. It was you!"

A shrill bell was ringing outside. We heard the commotion of hurrying
footsteps, the call-boy's summons, the creaking of moving scenery.
Feurgeres glanced at the watch which stood upon his table. His manner
seemed to undergo a sudden change. The man no longer revealed himself.

"The curtain is going up," he said. "I can stay with you but two minutes
longer. I am coming to see Mr. Greatson to-night, Isobel, after the
performance, and I wish to see him alone. This is at once our meeting
and our farewell."

"Our farewell!" she repeated doubtfully. "Surely you are not going to
leave us--so soon! You cannot mean that?"

"To-morrow," he said, "I leave for St. Petersburg. My engagement there
has been made many months ago. But even if it were not so, dear child,
our ways through life must always lie far apart. If the necessity for it
had not existed, I should not have left you to the care of--of even Mr.
Greatson. To be your guardian, Isobel, would not be seemly. That you
will better understand--to-morrow."

"Indeed!" she protested, "I would sooner hear it now from your own
lips--if, indeed, it must be so!"

He shook his head very slowly, but with a decision more finite than the
most emphatic negation which words could have framed.

"I must go away, Isobel," he said, "and you and I must remain apart. I
will only ask you to remember me by this. I am the man your mother
loved. Nothing else in my life is worth considering--but that. I am one
of those with whom fate has dealt a little hardly. I am as weary of my
work as I am of life itself. I go on because it was her wish. But I
cannot forget. The past remains--a blazing page of light. The present is
a very empty and a very cold place. My days here are a sort of
aftermath. My life ended with hers. To-night, for one moment--I want you
to take her place."

Isobel looked at him eagerly.

"Tell me how," she begged. "Tell me what to do!"

"It may sound very foolish," he said