rsuade himself that all would still be well, he could not help
recalling the fierce vehemence with which Nina had repudiated the
suggestion that perhaps she might let some one else drink out of this
hapless loving-cup that now lay before him. "I would rather have it
dashed to pieces and thrown into the sea!" she had said, with pale face
and quivering lips and eyes bordering on tears. He remembered that he
had been a little surprised at the time--not thinking what it all might
mean.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CRISIS.

When he went down to Sloane Street in the morning, he found Estelle
eagerly awaiting him. She received him in Nina's small parlor; Mrs. Grey
had just gone out. A glance round the room did not show him any
difference, except that a row of photographs (of himself, mostly, in
various costumes) had disappeared from the mantelshelf.

"Well, what is all this about?" he said, somewhat abruptly.

"Ah, do not blame me too quick!" Estelle said, with tears springing to
her clear blue eyes. "Perhaps I am to blame--perhaps when I see her in
such trouble on Saturday night, I should entreat her to tell me why; but
I said, 'To-night I will not worry her more; to-morrow morning I will
talk to her; we will go for a long walk together? Nina will tell me all
her sorrow.' Then the morning comes, and she is gone away; what can I
do? Twice I go to your apartment--"

"Oh, I am not blaming you at all, Miss Girond," he said, at once and
quite gently. "If anybody is to blame, I suppose it's myself, for I
appear to have quarrelled with Nina without knowing it. Of course you
understood that that packet you left yesterday contained the various
little presents I have given her from time to time--worthless bits of
things--but all the same her sending them back shows that Nina has some
ground of offence. I'm very sorry; if I could only get hold of her I
would try to reason with her; but she was always sensitive and proud and
impulsive like that. And then to run away because of some fancied
slight--"

Estelle interrupted him with a little gesture of impatience, almost of
despair.

"Ah, you are wrong, you are wrong," she said. "It is far more serious
than that. It is no little quarrel. It is a pain that stabs to the
heart--that kills. You will see Nina never again to make up a little
quarrel. She has taken her grief away with her. I myself, when I first
saw her troubled at the theatre, I also made a mistake--I thought she
was hyste