ems
to wait for hours; in reality only five minutes have passed when he
hears the door of the great library open, and Gervase passes quickly
through the apartment without seeing him, and goes on into the one where
she awaits his coming.

"Are you really risen so early?" she says, with a sarcastic coldness in
her voice. "I remembered afterwards that it was too cruel to name to you
any hour before noon."

"You are unkind," he answers. "To hear what I hope to hear, you may be
sure that I would have gone through much greater trials than even rising
with the lark, had you commanded it."

His words are light, but his accent is tender and appealing.

"What do you hope to hear?" she asks, abruptly. The question embarrasses
him and sounds cold.

"I hope to hear that you pardon me the past and will deign to crown my
future."

"I pardon you the past, certainly. With neither your present nor your
future have I anything to do."

"You say that very cruelly,--so cruelly that it makes your forgiveness
more unkind than your hatred would be."

"I intend no unkindness. I merely wish to express indifference. Perhaps
I am even mistaken in saying that I entirely forgive you. When I
remember that you once possessed any influence over me, I scarcely do
forgive you, for I am forced to despise myself."

"Those are very hard words! Perhaps in the past I was unworthy of having
known and loved you; but if you will believe in my regret, and allow me
occasion to atone, you shall never repent of your indulgence. Pray hear
me out, Xenia----"

"You cannot call me by that name. It is for my friends: you are not
numbered among them."

"I would be much more than your friend. If you will be my wife."

"It is too late," she replies, and her voice is as cold as ice.

"Why too late? We have all the best of our lives unspent before us."

"When I say too late, I mean that if you had said as much to me after
the death of Prince Sabaroff I should have accepted your hand, and I
should have spent the whole remainder of my existence in repenting that
I had done so; for I should soon have fathomed the shallowness of your
character, the artificiality and poverty of your sentiments, the
falseness of your mind, and I should speedily have hated both myself and
you."

"You are not merciful, madame!"

He is bitterly humbled and passionately incensed.

"Were you merciful?" she asks him, with the sound of a great anger,
carefully controlled, vibrating i