herself. It is a terrible world,
Felix, when all is told," says she, suddenly crossing her beautiful long
white hands over her knees, and leaning toward him. There is a touch of
misery so sharp in her voice that he starts as he looks at her. It is a
momentary fit of emotion, however, and passes before he dare comment on
it. With a heart nigh to breaking she still retains her composure and
talks calmly to Felix, and lets him talk to her, as though the fact that
she is soon to lose forever the man who once had gained her heart--that
fatal "once" that means for always, in spite of everything that has come
and gone--is as little or nothing to her. Seeing her sitting there,
strangely pale indeed, but so collected, it would be impossible to guess
at the tempest of passion and grief and terror that reigns within her
breast. Women are not so strong to bear as men, and therefore in the
world's storms suffer most.

"It is a lovely world," says he smiling, thinking of Joyce, and then,
remembering her sad lot, his smile fades. "One might make--perhaps--a
bad world--better," he says, stammering.

"Ah! teach me how," says she with a melancholy glance.

"There is such a thing as forgiveness. Forgive him!" blurts he out in a
frightened sort of way. He is horrified, at himself--at his own
temerity--a second later, and rises to his feet as if to meet the
indignation he has certainly courted. But to his surprise no such
indignation betrays itself.

"Is that your advice?" says she, still with the thin white hands clasped
over the knee, and the earnest gaze on him. "Well, well, well!"

Her eyes droop. She seems to be thinking, and he, gazing at her,
refrains from speech with his heart sad with pity. Presently she lifts
her head and looks at him.

"There! Go back to your love," she says with a glance that thrills him.
"Tell her from me that if you had the whole world to choose from, I
should still select her as your wife. I like her; I love her! There,
go!" She seems to grow all at once very tired. Are those tears that are
rising in her eyes? She holds out to him her hand.

Felix, taking it, holds it closely for a moment, and presently, as if
moved to do it, he stoops and presses a warm kiss upon it.

She is so unhappy, and so kind, and so true. God deliver her out of her
sorrow!

CHAPTER LVI.

"I would that I were low laid in my grave."

She is still sitting silent, lost in thought, after Felix's departure,
when th