herself, surrounded by the wall of fire!"

"I wish I were! I wish every woman had some such infallible way of
_proving_ every man who seeks her!"

"You have, Opal! You have your own womanly instincts--every woman's
impassable wall of fire, if she will only hide behind them. _You_ could
never love unworthily!"

"But, Paul, don't you know? Haven't they told you? I shall probably
marry the Count de Roannes!"

Paul was astounded.

"Opal! No! No! Not that, surely not that! I heard it, yes--a moment ago.
But I could not believe it. The idea was too horrible. It could not be
true!"

"But it is true, Paul! It is all too true!"

"It is a crime," he fairly groaned.

She shrank from him. "Don't say that, Paul!"

"But you know it is true! Opal, just think! If you give your sweet self
to him--and that is all you can give him, as you and I know--if you give
yourself to him, I say, I--I shall go mad!"

"Yet women have loved him," she began, bravely, attempting to defend
herself. "Women--some kinds of women--really love him now. He has a
power of--compelling--love--even yet!"

"And such women," Paul cried hoarsely, "are more to be honored than you
if you consent to become his property with no love in your heart! Don't
plead extenuating circumstances. There can be no extenuating
circumstances in all the world for such a thing."

She winced as though he had struck her, for she knew in her heart that
what he said was true, brutally true. The Boy was only voicing her own
sentiments--the theory to which she had always so firmly clung.

As Paul paused, a sudden realization of his own future overwhelmed him
and locked his lips. He smiled sadly. Who was he that he should talk
like that? Was not he, too, pleading extenuating circumstances? True, he
was a man and she was a woman, and the world has two distinct
standards--but--no less than she--he was selling himself for gain.

"Paul, Paul! I'm afraid you don't understand! It isn't _money_. Surely
you don't think that! It isn't money--it is honor--_honor_, do you hear?
My dead mother's honor, and my father's breaking heart!"

The secret was out, at last. This, then, was the shadow that had cast
its gloom over the family ever since he had come in contact with them.
It was even worse than he had thought. That she--the lovely Opal--should
have to sacrifice her own honor to save her mother's!

Honor! honor! how many crimes are committed in thy name!

"Tell me about it," he said s