n end of it. I will not
condescend to solicit his love. If she is such as you say, and if beauty
with him goes for everything, what chance could there be for such as
me?"

"I did not say that beauty with him went for everything."

"Of course it does. I ought to have known that it would be so with such
a one as him. And then she is rich also--wonderfully rich! What right
can I have to think of him?"

"Florence, you are unjust. You do not even suspect that it is her
money."

"To me it is the same thing. I suppose that a woman who is so beautiful
has a right to everything. I know that I am plain, and I will
be--content--in future--to think no more--" Poor Florence, when she had
got as far as that, broke down, and could go on no further with the
declaration which she had been about to make as to her future prospects.
Mrs. Burton, taking advantage of this, went on with her story,
struggling, not altogether unsuccessfully, to assume a calm tone of
unimpassioned reason.

"As I said before, he was dazzled--"

"Dazzled! oh!"

"But even then he had no idea of being untrue to you."

"No; he was untrue without an idea. That is worse."

"Florence, you are perverse, and are determined to be unfair. I must beg
that you will hear me to the end, so that then you may be able to judge
what course you ought to follow." This Mrs. Burton said with an air of
great authority; after which she continued in a voice something less
stern--"He thought of doing no injury to you when he went to see her;
but something of the feeling of his old love grew upon him when he was
in her company, and he became embarrassed by his position before he was
aware of his own danger. He might, of course, have been stronger." Here
Florence exhibited a gesture of strong impatience, though she did not
speak. "I am not going to defend him altogether, but I think you must
admit that he was hardly tried. Of course I can not say what passed
between them, but I can understand how easily they might recur to the
old scenes--how naturally she would wish for a renewal of the love which
she had been base enough to betray! She does not, however, consider
herself as at present engaged to him. That you may know for certain. It
may be that she has asked him for such a promise, and that he has
hesitated. If so, his staying away from us, and his not writing to you,
can be easily understood."

"And what is it you would have me do?"

"He is ill now. Wait till he is well. H