heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of
affection for me.'

"I hope I was answered, Yorke?

"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark.

"'_Loved_ you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a
sister--never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed
triumphantly--'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor
accelerate my pulse by your influence.'

"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the
sound of my name moved her.

"'Not for _your_ sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but
could get none.

"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you
then? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved you
then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you
on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?'

"So she questioned me; and I said I did.

"By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded and refined
almost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coal
when its vivid vermilion is hottest.

"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny me
the possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitor
to all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act without
degrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of
my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent for
many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou art
fallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate
in my friendship, are cast out. Go!'

"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knew
another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm and
some sunshine must come, and I would wait for it.

"As fast, but more quietly than before, the warm rain streamed down.
There was another sound in her weeping--a softer, more regretful sound.
While I watched, her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than
haughty, more mournful than incensed.

"'O Moore!' said she. It was worse than 'Et tu, Brute!'

"I relieved myself by what should have been a sigh, but it became a
groan. A sense of Cain-like desolation made my breast ache.

"'There has been error in what I have done,' I said, 'and it has won me
bitter wages, which I will go and spend far from her who gave them.'

"I took my hat. All the time I could not have bo