as she looked at me with shining eyes. Without a word, but with a
courteous little bow, she sat down at once. I put a thick rug across her
shoulders, and sat down myself on a stool a couple of feet away.

For fully five or six minutes we sat in silence. At last, turning her
head towards me she said in a sweet, low voice:

"I had intended coming earlier on purpose to thank you for your very
sweet and gracious courtesy to me, but circumstances were such that I
could not leave my--my"--she hesitated before saying--"my abode. I am
not free, as you and others are, to do what I will. My existence is
sadly cold and stern, and full of horrors that appal. But I _do_ thank
you. For myself I am not sorry for the delay, for every hour shows me
more clearly how good and understanding and sympathetic you have been to
me. I only hope that some day you may realize how kind you have been,
and how much I appreciate it."

"I am only too glad to be of any service," I said, feebly I felt, as I
held out my hand. She did not seem to see it. Her eyes were now on the
fire, and a warm blush dyed forehead and cheek and neck. The reproof was
so gentle that no one could have been offended. It was evident that she
was something coy and reticent, and would not allow me to come at present
more close to her, even to the touching of her hand. But that her heart
was not in the denial was also evident in the glance from her glorious
dark starry eyes. These glances--veritable lightning flashes coming
through her pronounced reserve--finished entirely any wavering there
might be in my own purpose. I was aware now to the full that my heart
was quite subjugated. I knew that I was in love--veritably so much in
love as to feel that without this woman, be she what she might, by my
side my future must be absolutely barren.

It was presently apparent that she did not mean to stay as long on this
occasion as on the last. When the castle clock struck midnight she
suddenly sprang to her feet with a bound, saying:

"I must go! There is midnight!" I rose at once, the intensity of her
speech having instantly obliterated the sleep which, under the influence
of rest and warmth, was creeping upon me. Once more she was in a frenzy
of haste, so I hurried towards the window, but as I looked back saw her,
despite her haste, still standing. I motioned towards the screen, and
slipping behind the curtain, opened the window and went out on the
terrace. As