rcion mean? Surely this is mere fancy?'

'I am not so certain of that. The convent has great hopes of inheriting her
fortune. She is rich, and she is a devout Catholic; and we have heard of
cases where zeal for the Church has pushed discretion very far.'

'What a worldly creature it is!' cried Nina; 'and who would have suspected
it?'

'I do not see the worldliness of my believing that people will do much to
serve the cause they follow. When chemists tell us that there is no
finding such a thing as a glass of pure water, where are we to go for pure
motives?'

'To one's heart, of course,' said Nina; but the curl of her perfectly-cut
lip as she said it, scarcely vouched for the sincerity.

On that same evening, just as the last flickerings of twilight were dying
away, Nina stole into the sick-room, and took her place noiselessly beside
the bed.

Slowly moving his arm without turning his head, or by any gesture whatever
acknowledging her presence, he took her hand and pressed it to his burning
lips, and then laid it upon his cheek. She made no effort to withdraw her
hand, and sat perfectly still and motionless.

'Are we alone?' whispered he, in a voice hardly audible.

'Yes, quite alone.'

'If I should say what--displease you,' faltered he, his agitation making
speech even more difficult; 'how shall I tell?' And once more he pressed
her hand to his lips.

'No, no; have no fears of displeasing me. Say what you would like to tell
me.'

'It is this, then,' said he, with an effort. 'I am dying with my secret in
my heart. I am dying, to carry away with me the love I am not to tell--my
love for you, Kate.'

'I am _not_ Kate,' was almost on her lips; but her struggle to keep silent
was aided by that desire so strong in her nature--to follow out a situation
of difficulty to the end. She did not love him, nor did she desire his
love; but a strange sense of injury at hearing his profession of love for
another shot a pang of intense suffering through her heart, and she lay
back in her chair with a cold feeling of sickness like fainting. The
overpowering passion of her nature was jealousy; and to share even the
admiration of a salon, the 'passing homage,' as such deference is called,
with another, was a something no effort of her generosity could compass.

Though she did not speak, she suffered her hand to remain unresistingly
within his own. After a short pause he went on: 'I thought yesterday that I
was dying; and in