ded. "Duel after duel he fought, man after man he killed, thanks
to his love for her and his manhood. He would not release what he loved.
He would not allow his class to separate him from his choice. But the
_women!_ Ah, he could not fight them! So I have hated women, and made
war on them all my life. My father could not placate his Emperor. So,
in short, that scientific experiment ended in misery--and me!"

The room had grown dimmer. The sun was sinking as she talked. There was
silence, I know, for a long time before she spoke again.

"In time, then, my father left his estates and went out to a small place
in the country; but my mother--her heart was broken. Malice pursued her.
Those who were called her superiors would not let her alone. See, he
weeps, my father, as he thinks of these things.

"There was cause, then, to weep. For two years, they tell me, my mother
wept Then she died. She gave me, a baby, to her friend, a woman of her
village--Threlka Mazoff. You have seen her. She has been my mother ever
since. She has been the sole guardian I have known all my life. She has
not been able to do with me as she would have liked."

"You did not live at your own home with your father?" I asked.

"For a time. I grew up. But my father, I think, was permanently shocked
by the loss of the woman he had loved and whom he had brought into all
this cruelty. She had been so lovable, so beautiful--she was so
beautiful, my mother! So they sent me away to France, to the schools. I
grew up, I presume, proof in part of the excellence of my father's
theory. They told me that I was a beautiful animal!"

The contempt, the scorn, the pathos--the whole tragedy of her voice and
bearing--were such as I can not set down on paper, and such as I scarce
could endure to hear. Never in my life before have I felt such pity for
a human being, never so much desire to do what I might in sheer
compassion.

But now, how clear it all became to me! I could understand many strange
things about the character of this singular woman, her whims, her
unaccountable moods, her seeming carelessness, yet, withal, her dignity
and sweetness and air of breeding--above all her mysteriousness. Let
others judge her for themselves. There was only longing in my heart that
I might find some word of comfort. What could comfort her? Was not life,
indeed, for her to remain a perpetual tragedy?

"But, Madam," said I, at length, "you must not wrong your father and
your mot