s a last moment!
Do you dare to tell me that still? Supposing your story to be true, and
mine--that woman's--false, how would it be between us then?"

"As it was in the first good old time when we were married."

"You, could forgive the wrong I have done you all these years,
supposing----"

"Everything--all."

"Ah!" This sound seems crushed out of her. She steps backward, and a dry
sob breaks from her.

"What is it?" asks he, quickly.

"Oh, that I could--that I dared--believe," says she.

"You would have proofs," says he, coldly, resigning her hand. "My word
is not enough. You might love me did I prove worthy; your love is not
strong enough to endure the pang of distrust. Was ever real love so poor
a thing as that? However, you shall have them."

"What?" asks she, raising her head.

"The proofs you desire," responds he, icily. "That woman--your
friend--the immaculate one--died the the day before yesterday. What? You
never heard? And you and she----"

"She was nothing to me," says Lady Baltimore. "Nothing since."

"The day she reviled me! And yet"--with a most joyless laugh--"for the
sake of a woman you cared so little about, that even her death has not
caused you a pang, you severed the tie that should have been the closest
to you on earth? Well, she is dead. 'Heaven rest her sowl!' as the
peasants say. She wrote me a letter on her bed of death."

"Yes?" Eagerly.

"You still doubt?" says he, with a stern glance at her. "So be it; you
shall see the letter, though how will that satisfy you? For you can
always gratify your desire for suspicion by regarding it as a forgery.
The woman herself is dead, so, of course, there is no one to contradict.
Do think this all out," says he, with a contemptuous laugh, "before you
commit yourself to a fresh belief in me. You see I give you every
chance. To such a veritable 'Thomas' in petticoats every road should be
laid open. Now"--tauntingly--"will you wait here whilst I bring the
proof?"

He is gazing at her in a heartbroken sort of way. Is it the end? Is it
all really over? There had been a faint flicker of the dying candle--a
tiny glare--and now for all time is it to be darkness?

As for her. Ever since he had let her hand go, she had stood with bent
head looking at it. He had taken it, he had let it go; there seemed to
be a promise of heaven--was it a false one?

She is silent, and Baltimore, who had hoped for one word of trust, of
belief, makes a gesture of des