hat whatever happens, you will see me
to-morrow evening--and see me alone."

"I promise, but it may be to say good-by."

He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong
resolve.

"Good-night, Christine," he said.

"Good-night," she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a
great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in
a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her.
Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of
solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, assuring
pressure, and was gone.

Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her
room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring.
She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking
with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain
were inseparably united.

XVI.

Noel's note came early. It announced that his mother would be ready to
receive her visitor any time after eleven. It was full of the strongest
assurances of love and constancy, and Christine knew it was meant to
comfort and support her in her approaching ordeal. She felt so strong to
meet this, however, that even Mrs. Murray's earnest protest that harm
would come of the visit failed to intimidate her, and she turned a deaf
ear to all her good friend's entreaties to her to give it up. Mrs.
Murray's advice was for the immediate marriage and departure for Europe,
but Christine's mind was made up, and could not be shaken.

She was feeling strangely calm as she drove along through a part of the
great city she had never ever seen before, where there were none but
splendid houses, with glimpses, through richly-curtained windows, of
luxurious interiors, and where all the people who passed her, whether
on foot or in handsome carriages, had an air of ease and comfort and
luxury that made her feel herself still more an alien. She did not
regret her resolution, but she felt quite hopeless of its result. It
would make matters simpler for her, at all events.

When the carriage stopped she got out with a strange feeling of
unreality, closed the door behind her, careful to see that it caught,
spoke to the driver quietly and told him to wait, and then walked up the
steps and rang the bell. During the moment she stood there a boy came
along and threw a small printed paper at her feet. It was an
ad