ree, she took his
hand very quietly, and led him to a seat that stood beside her chair.
His hand was cold, and she kept it in both her own as though to warm it.

'I knew you would come to me,' she said very softly. 'How ill you look,
my poor Cyril! You have not slept. Oh yes, I know all about it. And you
have been to father, and you have both made yourselves very miserable.
Do you think I do not know that? Poor father! and he is so
tender-hearted.'

'I tried to spare him,' he returned wearily. 'I did not wish to put him
to any trouble. I must dree my own weird, Audrey.'

'But I shall have to dree it too. Cyril, my darling, you shall not bear
your trouble alone; it is far too heavy for you. As far as we can--as
far as our duty permits, we will bear it together.' And then, as though
the haggardness of his young face was too much for her, she came closer
to him, and laid her head on his shoulder. 'We will bear it together,
Cyril.'

'But, Audrey, my one blessing, that cannot be. Do you know what I have
come to say to you this morning? That our engagement must be at an
end--that you are free, quite free.'

'But I do not wish for freedom.'

'My darling, you ought to wish for it. Under the circumstances, it is
quite impossible that we should ever be married. I am a ruined man,
Audrey; I have lost my good name, my work, my worldly credit; my
connections are disreputable. By this time you must know that I have a
father living, and that his name----'

But she gently checked him.

'Yes, dear, I know all.'

'And yet you can tell me that you do not desire freedom? But that is all
your goodness, and because you do not wish to pain me. Audrey, when I
tell you that I must give up the idea of ever calling you my wife, it
seems to me as though the bitterness of death were on me.'

'My poor Cyril!'

'Yes, I am poor indeed; I never dreamt of such poverty. They might have
taken from me everything, and I would not have murmured, if they had
only left me my faith in my mother, and if they had not robbed me of my
love!'

'She is yours still, Cyril. No, do not turn from me; I mean it--I mean
it! If you give me up, if you say to yourself that our engagement is
broken, it must be as you choose, and I must let you go. No woman can
compel a man to remain bound to her. But the freedom is on your side
alone; I neither ask nor desire to be free.'

'Darling, darling, what can you mean?'

'If you say that you will never marry me,' she