put my own feelings out of the question," she said. "There is
a reason for my not going away, unless I first have the assurance of
seeing you again. You have a claim--the strongest claim of any one--to
know how I came here, unknown to my friends, and how it was that you
found me fallen so low."

"I make no claim," he said, hastily. "I wish to know nothing which
distresses you to tell me."

"You have always done your duty," she rejoined, with a faint smile. "Let
me take example from you, if I can, and try to do mine."

"I am old enough to be your father," he said, bitterly. "Duty is more
easily done at my age than it is at yours."

His age was so constantly in his mind now that he fancied it must be
in her mind too. She had never given it a thought. The reference he
had just made to it did not divert her for a moment from the subject on
which she was speaking to him.

"You don't know how I value your good opinion of me," she said,
struggling resolutely to sustain her sinking courage. "How can I deserve
your kindness, how can I feel that I am worthy of your regard, until I
have opened my heart to you? Oh, don't encourage me in my own miserable
weakness! Help me to tell the truth--_force_ me to tell it, for my own
sake if not for yours!"

He was deeply moved by the fervent sincerity of that appeal.

"You _shall_ tell it," he said. "You are right--and I was wrong." He
waited a little, and considered. "Would it be easier to you," he asked,
with delicate consideration for her, "to write it than to tell it?"

She caught gratefully at the suggestion. "Far easier," she replied. "I
can be sure of myself--I can be sure of hiding nothing from you, if I
write it. Don't write to me on your side!" she added, suddenly, seeing
with a woman's instinctive quickness of penetration the danger of
totally renouncing her personal influence over him. "Wait till we meet,
and tell me with your own lips what you think."

"Where shall I tell it?"

"Here!" she said eagerly. "Here, where you found me helpless--here,
where you have brought me back to life, and where I have first learned
to know you. I can bear the hardest words you say to me if you will
only say them in this room. It is impossible I can be away longer than
a month; a month will be enough and more than enough. If I come back--"
She stopped confusedly. "I am thinking of myself," she said, "when I
ought to be thinking of you. You have your own occupations and your own
friends