r sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew, as she uttered it, it
was true as queer. Her words were a mirror in which I saw myself.

"I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged and shamed me.

"'Gerard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might have
broken out into false swearing--vowed that I did love her; but I could
not lie in her pure face. I could not perjure myself in her truthful
presence. Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void. She
would no more have believed me than she would have believed the ghost of
Judas, had he broken from the night and stood before her. Her female
heart had finer perceptions than to be cheated into mistaking my
half-coarse, half-cold admiration for true-throbbing, manly love.

"What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke.

"Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried. She cried passionately.
Her eyes not only rained but lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark,
haughty, upon me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have outraged me;
you have deceived me.'

"She added words soon to looks.

"'I _did_ respect--I _did_ admire--I _did_ like you,' she said--'yes, as
much as if you were my brother; and _you--you_ want to make a
speculation of me. You would immolate me to that mill, your Moloch!'

"I had the common sense to abstain from any word of excuse, any attempt
at palliation. I stood to be scorned.

"Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly infatuated. When
I did speak, what do you think I said?

"'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded _you_ loved _me_, Miss
Keeldar.'

"Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore
that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Is it a man--or something lower?'

"'Do you mean,' she asked aloud--'do you mean you thought I loved you as
we love those we wish to marry?'

"It _was_ my meaning, and I said so.

"'You conceived an idea obnoxious to a woman's feelings,' was her
answer. 'You have announced it in a fashion revolting to a woman's soul.
You insinuate that all the frank kindness I have shown you has been a
complicated, a bold, and an immodest manoeuvre to ensnare a husband. You
imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer me your hand,
because I have courted you. Let me say this: Your sight is jaundiced;
you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your
tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest
there. My