ld
swear to be perfect. Her mouth was large, and she rarely showed her
teeth. Her chin was full, marked by a large dimple, and as it ran down
to her neck was beginning to form a second. Her bust was full and
beautifully shaped; but she invariably dressed as though she were
oblivious, or at any rate neglectful, of her own charms. Her dress, as
Montague had seen her, was always black,--not a sad weeping widow's
garment, but silk or woollen or cotton as the case might be, always
new, always nice, always well-fitting, and most especially always
simple. She was certainly a most beautiful woman, and she knew it. She
looked as though she knew it,--but only after that fashion in which a
woman ought to know it. Of her age she had never spoken to Montague.
She was in truth over thirty,--perhaps almost as near thirty-five as
thirty. But she was one of those whom years hardly seem to touch.

'You are beautiful as ever you were,' he said.

'Psha! Do not tell me of that. I care nothing for my beauty unless it
can bind me to your love. Sit down there and tell me what it means.'
Then she let go his hand, and seated herself opposite to the chair
which she gave him.

'I told you in my letter.'

'You told me nothing in your letter,--except that it was to be--off. Why
is it to be--off? Do you not love me?' Then she threw herself upon her
knees, and leaned upon his, and looked up in his face. 'Paul,' she
said, 'I have come across the Atlantic on purpose to see you,--after so
many months,--and will you not give me one kiss? Even though you should
leave me for ever, give me one kiss.' Of course he kissed her, not
once, but with a long, warm embrace. How could it have been otherwise?
With all his heart he wished that she would have remained away, but
while she knelt there at his feet what could he do but embrace her?
'Now tell me everything,' she said, seating herself on a footstool at
his feet.

She certainly did not look like a woman whom a man might ill-treat or
scorn with impunity. Paul felt, even while she was lavishing her
caresses upon him, that she might too probably turn and rend him
before he left her. He had known something of her temper before,
though he had also known the truth and warmth of her love. He had
travelled with her from San Francisco to England, and she had been
very good to him in illness, in distress of mind and in poverty,--for he
had been almost penniless in New York. When they landed at Liverpool
they were