f my life in cherishing a wound that was dear to me
because your hand had dealt it--after so much joy and so much pain, you
return to this room, in which every object is replete for us with living
memories, and you say to me calmly--"I am yours no
longer--good-bye."--Oh no--you do not love me.'

'Oh, you are ungrateful!' she cried, deeply wounded by the young man's
incensed tone. 'What do you know of all that has occurred, or of what I
have had to go through?--What do you know?'

'I know nothing, and what is more, I do not want to,' Andrea retorted
stubbornly, enveloping her in a darkling look in which burned the fever
of his desire. 'All I know is that you were mine once--wholly and
without reserve, and I know that body and soul I shall never forget
it----'

'Be silent!'

'What do I care for your sisterly affection? In spite of yourself you
offer it with your eyes full of quite another kind of love, and you
cannot touch me without your hands trembling. I have seen that look in
your eyes too often, you have too often felt me tremble with passion
beneath your hands--I love you!'

Carried away by his own words he grasped her wrists tightly and drew so
close to her that she felt his hot breath on her cheek. 'I love you, I
tell you--more than ever before,' he went on, slipping an arm about her
waist to draw her to his kiss--'Have you forgotten--have you forgotten?'

She pushed him forcibly from her and rose to her feet, trembling in
every limb.

'I will not--do you hear?'

But he would not hear. He came towards her with arms outstretched, very
pale and determined.

'Could you bear,' she cried turning at bay at last, indignant at his
violence, 'could you bear to share me with another?'

She flung the cruel question at him point-blank, without reflection, and
now stood looking at her lover with wide open frightened eyes, like one
who in self-defence has dealt a blow without measuring his strength, and
fears to have struck too deep.

Andrea's frenzy dropped on the instant, and his face expressed such
overwhelming pain that Elena was stricken to the heart.

After a moment's silence--'Good-bye!' he said, but that one word
contained all the bitterness of the words he refrained from saying.

'Good-bye,' she answered gently, 'forgive me.'

They both felt the necessity of putting an end, at least for that
evening, to this perilous conversation. Andrea affected an almost
over-strained courtesy. Elena became even gen