d and invested with an odd quiver. "But nothing that your lips
might ask of me and that it might lie in the power of mortal man to do,
would be too much!"

"You mean?" she cried, a catch in her breath. Had she guessed--as I,
without sight of her face, had guessed--what was to follow? My gorge was
rising fast. I clenched my hands, and by an effort I restrained myself
to learn that I had guessed aright.

"Some two months ago," he said, "I journeyed to Lavedan, as you may
remember. I saw you, mademoiselle--for a brief while only, it is
true--and ever since I have seen nothing else but you." His voice went a
shade lower, and passion throbbed in his words.

She, too, perceived it, for the grating of a chair informed me that she
had risen.

"Not now, monsieur--not now!" she exclaimed. "This is not the season. I
beg of you think of my desolation."

"I do, mademoiselle, and I respect your grief, and, with all my heart,
believe me, I share it. Yet this is the season, and if you have this
man's interests at heart, you will hear me to the end."

Through all the imperiousness of his tone an odd note of respect--real
or assumed--was sounding.

"If you suffer, mademoiselle, believe me that I suffer also, and if I
make you suffer more by what I say, I beg that you will think how what
you have said, how the very motive of your presence here, has made me
suffer. Do you know, mademoiselle, what it is to be torn by jealousy?
Can you imagine it? If you can, you can imagine also something of the
torture I endured when you confessed to me that you loved this Lesperon,
when you interceded for his life. Mademoiselle, I love you--with all my
heart and soul I love you. I have loved you, I think, since the first
moment of our meeting at Lavedan, and to win you there is no risk that I
would not take, no danger that I would not brave."

"Monsieur, I implore you--"

"Hear me out, mademoiselle!" he cried. Then in quieter voice he
proceeded: "At present you love this Monsieur de Lesperon--"

"I shall always love him! Always, monsieur!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" he exclaimed, annoyed by her interruption. "If he
were to live, and you were to wed him and be daily in his company, I
make no doubt your love might endure. But if he were to die, or if he
were to pass into banishment and you were to see him no more, you would
mourn him for a little while, and then--Helas! it is the way of men and
women--time would heal first your sorrow, then your hear