at the wretchedness of what I
have found!"

"Ah, don't say that, Mr. Wright," Angela begged.

He stood for an instant looking at her, but not heeding her words.
"Will you listen to me again? Will you forget the wrong I did you?--my
stupidity and folly and unworthiness? Will you blot out the past and let
me begin again. I see you as clearly now as the light of that window.
Will you give me another chance?"

Angela turned away her eyes and covered her face with her hands. "You do
pain me!" she murmured.

"You go too far," said Bernard. "To what position does your
extraordinary proposal relegate your wife?"

Gordon turned his pleading eyes on his old friend without a ray of
concession; but for a moment he hesitated. "Don't speak to me of my
wife. I have no wife."

"Ah, poor girl!" said Angela, springing up from the sofa.

"I am perfectly serious," Gordon went on, addressing himself again to
her. "No, after all, I am not crazy; I see only too clearly--I see what
should be; when people see that, you call them crazy. Bernard has no
right--he must give you up. If you really care for him, you should help
him. He is in a very false position; you should n't wish to see him
in such a position. I can't explain to you--if it were even for my own
sake. But Bernard must have told you; it is not possible that he has not
told you?"

"I have told Angela everything, Gordon," said Bernard.

"I don't know what you mean by your having done me a wrong!" the girl
exclaimed.

"If he has told you, then--I may say it! In listening to him, in
believing him."

"But you did n't believe me," Bernard exclaimed, "since you immediately
went and offered yourself to Miss Vivian!"

"I believed you all the same! When did I ever not believe you?"

"The last words I ever heard from Mr. Wright were words of the deepest
kindness," said Angela.

She spoke with such a serious, tender grace, that Gordon seemed stirred
to his depths again.

"Ah, give me another chance!" he moaned.

The poor girl could not help her tone, and it was in the same tone that
she continued--

"If you think so well of me, try and be reasonable."

Gordon looked at her, slowly shaking his head.

"Reasonable--reasonable? Yes, you have a right to say that, for you are
full of reason. But so am I. What I ask is within reasonable limits."

"Granting your happiness were lost," said Bernard--"I say that only for
the argument--is that a ground for your wishing to deprive