she stands
in all her dark but rather evil beauty before him; then suddenly she
falls upon her knees.

"Philip, have pity on me!" she cries painfully. "I love you,--I have
only you. Here in this house I am alone, a stranger in my own land. Do
not you too turn from me. Ah! you should be the last to condemn, for if
I dreamed of sin it was for your sake. And after all, what did I say?
The thought that this girl's coming might upset the dream of years
agitated me, and I spoke--I--but I meant nothing--nothing." She drags
herself on her knees nearer to him and attempts to take his hand.
"Darling, do not be so stern. Forgive me. If you cast me off, Philip,
you will kill not only my body, but all that is good in me."

"Do not touch me," returns he, harshly, the vein of brutality in him
coming to the surface as he pushes her from him and with slight
violence unclasps her clinging fingers.

The action is in itself sufficient, but the look that accompanies
it--betraying as it does even more disgust than hatred--stings her to
self-control. Slowly she rises to her feet. As she does so, a spasm, a
contraction near her heart, causes her to place her hand involuntarily
against her side, while a dull gray shadow covers her face.

"You mean," she says, speaking with the utmost difficulty, "that
all--is at an end--between us."

"I do mean that," he answers, very white, but determined.

"Then beware!" she murmurs, in a low, choked voice.

CHAPTER XI.

"You stood before me like a thought,
A dream remembered in a dream."

--Coleridge.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and Herst is the richer by one
more inmate. Molly has arrived, has been received by Marcia, has
pressed cheeks with her, has been told she is welcome in a palpably
lying tone, and finally has been conducted to her bedroom. Such a
wonder of a bedroom compared with Molly's snug but modest sanctum at
home,--a very marvel of white and blue, and cloudy virginal muslins,
and filled with innumerable luxuries.

Molly, standing in the centre of it,--unaware that she is putting all
its other beauties to shame--gazes round her in silent admiration,
appreciates each pretty trifle to its fullest, and finally feels a
vague surprise at the curious sense of discontent that pervades her.

Her reception so far has not been cordial. Marcia's cold unloving eyes
have pierced her and left a little cold frozen spot within her heart.
She is chilled and