an it was then,
though it was worthless enough. Give it to me, and let me fling it into
the fire."

She looked up at him all at once, and her eyes were full to the brim.
Lady Throckmorton was right in one respect. She was strengthless enough
sometimes. She was worse than strengthless against Denis Oglethorpe.

"Don't be angry with me," she said, almost humbly. "I don't think you
could be angry with me if you knew how unhappy I am to-day." And the
tears that had brimmed upward fell upon the folded hands themselves.

"Why to-day?" he asked, softening with far more reason than he had been
galled. "What has to-day brought, Theodora?"

She answered him with a soft little gasp, of a remorseful sob. "It has
brought M. Maurien," she confessed.

"And sent him away again?" he added, in a low, unsteady voice.

She nodded; her simple, pathetic sorrowfulness showing itself even in
the poor little gesture.

"He has been very fond of me for a long time," she said, tremulously.
"He says that he loves me. He came to ask me to be his wife. I am very
sorry for him."

"Why?" he asked again, unsteadily.

"I was obliged to make him unhappy," she answered. "I do not love him."

"Why?" he repeated yet again; but his voice had sunk into a whisper.

"Because," she said, trembling all over now--"because I cannot."

He could not utter another word. There was such danger for him, and his
perilled honor, in her simple tremor and sadness, that he was forced to
be silent.

It was not safe to follow M. Maurien at least. But, as might be
anticipated, their conversation flagged in no slight degree. The hearts
of both were so full of one subject that it would have been hard to
force them to another. Theo, upon her low _sultane_, sat mute with
drooped eyes, becoming more silent every moment. Oglethorpe, in
regarding her beautiful downcast face, forgot himself also. It was
almost half an hour before he remembered he had not made the visit
without an object. He had something to say to her--something he had once
said to her before. He was going away again, and had come to tell her
so. But he recollected himself at last.

"I must not forget that I had a purpose in coming here to-night," he
said.

"A purpose?" she repeated, after him.

"Yes," he answered. "I found last night, on returning to my hotel, that
there was a letter awaiting me from London--from my employers, in fact.
I must leave Paris to-morrow morning."

"And will you not come