sed behind my back."

This was a sharp thrust at the very outset, but Carrington turned it
aside and went quietly on:

"You are frank and loyal, as you always are. I will be so too. I can't
help being so. For months I have had no other pleasure than in being
near you. For the first time in my life I have known what it is to
forget my own affairs in loving a woman who seems to me without a fault,
and for one solitary word from whom I would give all I have in life, and
perhaps itself."

Madeleine flushed and bent towards him with an earnestness of manner
that repeated itself in her tone.

"Mr. Carrington, I am the best friend you have on earth. One of these
days you will thank me with your whole soul for refusing to listen to
you now. You do not know how much misery I am saving you. I have no
heart to give. You want a young, fresh life to help yours; a gay, lively
temperament to enliven your despondency; some one still young enough to
absorb herself in you and make all her existence yours. I could not do
it. I can give you nothing. I have done my best to persuade myself that
some day I might begin life again with the old hopes and feelings, but
it is no use. The fire is burned out. If you married me, you would
destroy yourself You would wake up some day, and find the universe dust
and ashes."

Carrington listened in silence. He made no attempt to interrupt or to
contradict her. Only at the end he said with a little bitterness: "My
own life is worth so much to the world and to me, that I suppose it
would be wrong to risk it on such a venture; but I would risk it,
nevertheless, if you gave me the chance. Do you think me wicked for
tempting Providence? I do not mean to annoy you with entreaties. I have
a little pride left, and a great deal of respect for you. Yet I think,
in spite of all you have said or can say, that one disappointed life may
be as able to find happiness and repose in another, as to get them by
sucking the young life-blood of a fresh soul."

To this speech, which was unusually figurative for Carrington, Mrs. Lee
could find no ready answer. She could only reply that Carrington's life
was worth quite as much as his neighbour's, and that it was worth so
much to her, if not to himself, that she would not let him wreck it.

Carrington went on: "Forgive my talking in this way. I do not mean to
complain. I shall always love you just as much, whether you care for
me or not, because you are the only woman I