Noel promised with a willingness that seemed to comfort her. Absorbed in the child once more, she soon seemed to forget him and silence fell between them again. It was scarcely broken during the whole return trip. She seemed to have nothing to say to him. When she spoke to him at all her thrilling voice dropped to a whisper, and it was always to give some information about the baby. Once she said with fervent interest, "He is asleep," and once she told him that his skin felt cool and natural. This was all. It must be owned that Noel didn't think very lovingly of that poor atom of humanity as he sat there. It was the baby that had caused her to be in this false position, which he felt so keenly, and it was terror for the baby which brought that suffering look to her face. And yet something of the same feeling was in his own breast as he palpitated at the thought of this little creature's dying and breaking the heart of its mother, who plainly loved it with the absorbingness of the first passion she had ever known.

When they reached the wharf it was quite dark, and the electric lights and publicity of the place made Noel shrink so from the thought of exposing the girl, in her suffering, to the gaze of such men and women as he saw about him, that, without consulting her, he called a carriage and helped her into it, following and seating himself opposite her. She protested at first, but he said:

"I have a long way to go and need a carriage, and I may as well drop you at home. Where must I put you down?"

She gave a street and number. The door was shut, the man mounted to his box and drove away, and they were alone together. Alone, except for the baby, but that was enough to make him feel that he and all the world beside were thousands of miles away from her. They drove on in silence. Now and then as they passed a bright light, her beautiful face, outlined by its dark hat-brim and darker hair, shone out from the shadow, but for which he might have felt himself in a dream interrupted by no sound, except the monotonous rumble of the wheels. Always as he looked her eyes were lowered to catch each passing glimpse of the baby's face. She never looked at him.

He began to feel it necessary to ask one or two questions that he might know what to prepare for, but as he broke the silence to begin she said warningly, in a low whisper:

"Sh-sh-sh, he is waking," and then fell to rocking and crooning over the baby and coaxing him back to sleep. When he seemed quite quiet again she said suddenly in a low whisper, and in the dark he felt her eyes upon him:

"What makes you so kind? No one is ever kind to me. I thought nobody cared. I had one friend but she went away. She did not want to leave me, but she had to go far off somewhere to make a living for her mother."

"I will always help you if you will let me," Noel said, whispering too, for fear of being silenced. "I will send my sisters to see you, if you will let them come—"

"Oh, no!" she said, interrupting him impulsively. "Don't send any women out of the world you live in to see me. They are cruel—they have dreadful thoughts of me. They look at me strangely and suspect me. Oh, no—I'd rather take my baby to the end of the earth and hide from them. I beg you not to send any one to see me."

Noel hastened to promise her that he certainly would not go against her wish, and was wondering how he should find out the things he longed so to know, when suddenly the carriage stopped.

The driver got down and rang the bell. As Noel was helping Christine to get out, the door was opened and the figure of Dallas appeared. It was a surprise to him, somehow, and an unwelcome one. How his spirit rose in abhorrence of this man!

Christine went up the steps with the baby, and as he had her bag and shawl Noel followed, telling the driver to wait.

It was a miserable little house, poor and cheap, and empty, and but for the counteracting effect of his anger against Dallas, Noel thought he must have almost sobbed to see Christine here. Dallas himself was not at all discomposed as he recognized his visitor and asked him in, offering a hand which Noel managed to touch.

The baby was still asleep, and when Christine had placed it carefully on a wretched little couch, she seemed, for the first time, free to think of Noel. She turned and asked him to sit down—at the same time glancing about her with a sudden rush of consciousness, which until now a nearer interest had crowded out. The poverty-stricken look of her surroundings was made the more evident by the few objects belonging to other days that lay about—a charming sacque, smartly braided and lined with rich silk, hung on the back of a chair, and a handsome travelling rug was folded under the baby on the sofa. Everything was clean, for Christine even yet had not come to contemplate the possibility of doing without a servant.

There was a small kerosene lamp on a table, over which were spread a lot of cards with their faces up. Some one had evidently been playing solitaire, and as evidently, on the witness of another sense, been accompanying the game by the smoking of bad tobacco. The room reeked with it to a degree that made Noel feel it an outrage to Christine. But what was he to do? There was but one thing. He said good-by and went away, carrying the memory of Christine's face flushed scarlet for shame.

He remembered afterward that Dallas had taken no notice of the baby—not even glancing at it or inquiring for it—a thing which the poor mother had taken as a matter of course. He thought, as he shook hands with her at parting, that Christine had tried to speak—perhaps a word of thanks—but something stopped it and she let him go in silence.

The next afternoon Noel, at the same hour, went down to the wharf and boarded the excursion boat, for the deliberate purpose of having some practical talk with Christine. He soon found her, absorbed so completely in the baby that his coming seemed scarcely to disturb for a moment the intentness of her preoccupation. This, at first, made him feel a certain irritation, but he soon had reason to congratulate himself upon an absence of self-consciousness on her part which made it the easier for him to put certain questions. Everything he inquired about she responded to with absolute honesty and a sort of vagueness which precluded any such feelings as wounded pride. He learned, by his adroit questionings, that they were now very poor, that Dallas had been spending his principal, which was now exhausted, and that their chief means of support was the money she obtained for doing a very elaborate sort of embroidery which she had learned while at the convent. When he asked if she had all the work she wanted she said no, and that she often rang door-bells and asked ladies to give her work and was refused. She told all this with apathy, however, and seemed to have no power of acute feeling outside of her child.

Then Noel, with a beating heart, made a proposal to her which had occurred to him during the wakeful hours of the night, but which he had felt he should hardly have courage for. This was that she should come every day and give him sittings for a new picture he had in mind. When he suggested it, to his delight she caught eagerly at the idea, accepting every word he said in absolute good faith, and showing no disposition to doubt when he told her that every hour would be many times more valuable so spent than in sewing, as good models were rare and very well paid. She thanked him with the simplest gratitude, and when she heard that she would be allowed to bring her child with her she promised to come the next morning to his studio. The baby, she said, was better now, and would sleep for hours at a time, and in the afternoon she could take him on the water as usual. It was evident that there was no one else who made any demand upon her time—a significant fact to Noel.

Accordingly, next morning she came, her baby in her arms as usual. She had made an effort to dress herself attractively, looking upon the matter in a very businesslike way, and so girlish and charming and delicately high-bred did she look in her French-made gown of transparent black, with trimmings of pale green ribbons, and a wide lace hat to match, that Noel rebelled with all his might against her lugging that absurdly superfluous baby up those long steps. Still it was necessary to accept the inevitable, and he set his teeth and said nothing. When she had laid the sleeping child upon a lounge and turned toward him, her eyes fastened eagerly upon a great bunch of crimson roses in a blue china bowl, which Noel had gotten in honor of her coming. She did not, of course, suspect this, but he saw that here, at least, was a vivid and spontaneous feeling apart from her child, as she bent above the mass of rich color.

"Oh, how good they are!" she said. "I seem to want to eat them, and smell them and look at them all at once."

She held them off and regarded them enjoyingly a moment and then raised them to her face again, and smelled them with audible little sniffs, even nibbling the red leaves with her white teeth, as she looked at Noel over them and smiled. He went, delighted, and brought a basket of luscious grapes which he held out to her. She took a large bunch, and holding it by the stem began to pick the grapes off one by one and eat them enjoyingly. They were pale green in color, and he noted the effect of her clear pink nails against them and the beautiful curves of the long fingers that held the stem. He poured out some water in a beautiful old Venetian goblet and offered it to her. There was a bit of ice in it, which she tinkled against the side with the delight of a child before she drank it.

"I am sure I am dreaming, perfectly sure," she said seriously. "I only hope I won't wake until I have finished this bunch of grapes."

Then she lifted the glass to her mouth, tilting it until she had got the ice, which she chewed up noisily with her sharp little teeth. Noel felt a keen delight to see that she was letting herself be gay for a brief moment, but he seemed to see into the sadness back of it more plainly than ever.

"Oh, I am very happy," she said, suddenly throwing herself into a chair where she could see her sleeping child. "My baby is better—a great deal better; he has smiled twice, and is sleeping so peacefully! Yes, I am happy!—and yet the other feeling—the one that has been with me always lately—is here too. It is very strange that one can be at the same time very happy and also the most miserable woman in the world! Does this sound like craziness? I am not crazy. There are some people—did you know it?—who can't go crazy!—who never would, no matter what happened to them! A doctor told me that, and I believe it. He says it is constitutional or inherited or something like that—a physical thing—having a very strong brain that couldn't be upset!"

She rose now, and insisted that the sitting should begin. Noel saw again the unforgotten outline of her beautiful head, with its rippling dark hair drawn backward into that low knot behind.

It was in silence that she seated herself, and he began to work. He felt as if some fair saint were sitting to him, and that the picture would never come out right without a nimbus round the head. As he went on with his rapid drawing in charcoal he saw a change settle heavily upon the face before him. Utter sadness seemed to come there as soon as the lines relaxed into their natural look.

At last, when he felt he had done enough to entitle her to feel that she had really rendered service, he threw a cloth over the picture and declared the sitting ended. She did not, however, ask to look at it, but went over at once to where the baby lay, and stood looking down upon him. Noel, who had followed her, stood silently beside her for some moments. Suddenly she said aloud:

"I am very miserable."

He took it in silence, as he had taken her former confession of happiness. Presently she went on:

"I said, a little while ago, that I was happy, and for a moment I seemed to feel it in spite of all the misery. God knows I don't forget to thank Him that my baby is better"—her lips trembled—"but what is his dear life to be? What is mine to be? Always like this? Oh, God help me! My heart is broken."

He thought she was going to cry, but she did not. She only clasped her hands hard together and drew in her lower lip, clenching it in her teeth.

"Perhaps I ought not to speak like this," she said. "I don't know whether it is very wrong or not. But it is so long since any one was kind to me or seemed to care."

"It is not wrong," said Noel, "don't think it. Ease your heart by speaking, if it comforts you. Try to remember what we are to each other—think of me as your brother."

Thus invited, he hoped she would speak freely, but she caught her lip again, as if in the effort of self-repression, and shook her head. Noel was hurt.

"Do you not trust me?" he said.

"I trust you always," she answered. "You are good and kind and true, and not like other men. Oh, how bad they are! What things they can think of a woman! The world is dark and evil, and I and my baby are alone—alone—alone!"

The vehemence of this outburst seemed to recall her to herself and her surroundings, and by a tremendous effort she managed to attain a manner and expression of calm. The baby stirred and opened its eyes, and in a moment everything else was forgotten.

A few moments later, when, with the child in her arms, she was ready to go, Noel, as he handed her her gloves and pocketbook, slipped something into the latter.

"I don't know what you will think of the reward of your morning's labor," he said, in an off-hand way. "To me it seems miserably little, although you, with your notions, may think it too much. You don't know, of course, that a model such as the one I've secured this morning is hard to get, and can always command a good price. You have fairly and honestly earned it and I hope you will be willing to come again. May I say to-morrow?"

"If baby is as well as to-day. Oh, how good you are! I hope God will bless you for being so good to me."

"I hope He would curse me if I were not," said Noel, and then, restraining his vehemence, he begged her to let him carry the baby down-stairs for her. This she utterly refused, and it cut him to the heart to feel that her reason for doing so was not so much to save him trouble as to prevent his being seen in such a condescending attitude toward his model. So he had to see her go off alone with her burden. He rebelled passionately at the sight. Since the baby was—a stubborn fact in an emaciated form—and Christine could not be happy to have it out of her sight, the situation should, at any rate, have had the mitigations which civilization supplies. A picturesque bonne, in an effective cap and apron, should have carried the child for her, and a footman should have held open the door of a comfortable carriage for her on reaching the street. Instead of which he had to meet the maddening possibility that the cabman was careless and insolent and that passers-by in the street stared at her.

With his hands thrust deep in his trousers' pockets he turned back into the studio, slamming the door behind him with his elbow, and walking moodily over to the window, where he stood a long while lost in thought. The one satisfactory reflection which the situation suggested was that he had succeeded in making Christine accept, as a natural arrangement, the fact that when artists employed models they always sent them to and from the studios in a cab, which it was the artist's business to pay for.



VIII.

The next day Christine came again, and although she was comforted by the fact that the baby still seemed better Noel thought he had never seen or imagined such absolute sadness as both her face and manner showed. The picture progressed in long spaces of absolute silence, while Christine sat as immovable as the sleeping child near by. It seemed to Noel, in spite of his inexperience, that the child lay more in a state of stupor than sleep, and that its prostration argued the very lowest degree of vitality, but Christine seemed satisfied when he was asleep and so Noel made no comment.

During the sitting that day he asked Christine if he would prove himself a nuisance to either her or her husband if he sometimes called in the evening. To the first part of the inquiry she replied that she would be glad to see him, and to the latter, with a sort of hopeless wonder, that Mr. Dallas would not mind.

Noel went once, and once only. The visit was too painful to himself, and he felt also to Christine, to be repeated. The hideous barrenness of the place seemed an outrage to her delicacy and made the refinement of her beauty seem cruelly out of place. But more than all, when Noel looked on the untidy negligence and brutal insensibility of the man who was at liberty to call her wife, and whom she acknowledged as husband, he felt it unbearable. He was even worse than he remembered him. Formerly he had, at least, dressed well and kept up the forms of civility. Noel could imagine that he was now glad to be rid of the trouble. He did not even care to be particular about his person since he was now in a position where that bother could be dispensed with.

As soon as Noel began to talk to Christine Dallas filled his pipe and went off to the table to play solitaire. Noel fancied that the smell of the rank tobacco, which was unimproved in quality, made the poor girl sick. It was a relief when Dallas got up after a while, and shoving the cards together in a heap left the room. Then Noel inquired for the baby. Somehow he always shrank from speaking of it before Dallas.

"He is asleep up-stairs. Eliza is with him: He is better," said Christine, "but the doctor says there is no certainty until the hot weather is over. Oh, it's selfish of me to want him to live," she added, with a sudden agitation in her voice, "but it isn't that; it isn't life I want for him—only to keep him with me—to be where he is. If I could—"

She broke off huskily, and Noel, out of pity for her, got up and walked to the other end of the little room. When he got back she had recovered, and said with a smile:

"I am out of patience with myself for being gloomy now. You will think me such a poor coward. The baby is better and I will try to be bright. I said in my prayers to God that if He would let my baby get better I would be happy, and ask for nothing else. But what do you think this is?" she added, with a change of tone, drawing something from her pocket and holding it hid in her closed hand.

"I can't imagine," said Noel, full of delight to see that look of interest and amusement on her face.

"A present for you from me! Isn't that funny? It isn't anything very valuable and perhaps you won't care for it, but I have a feeling that I want you to have it. It's the cross of the Legion of Honor, which belonged to my grandfather. My mother left it to me among some trinkets of hers, which have all been sold. Don't look sorry about it; you don't know how little it matters now! This I could never have sold, and besides it is worth very little really—but I felt I wanted you to have it. Will you let me give it to you?"

She opened her hand and held it out to him with the cross lying on the palm. Noel was deeply touched.

"I never really expected to be decorated," he said, "but there is no possible way in which a decoration could come to me that could give me such pride and pleasure as this. Take it? I should think so! When I used to dream of being a painter I thought perhaps I'd have a great picture in the Salon and get a decoration for it. But I assure you this is better."

"Oh, what pleasant things you say!" said Christine. "You make me feel quite happy," and she held out the cross for him to take.

"I want you to fasten it on," said Noel. "I mean always to wear it. Will you pin it here?"

He turned back his coat and Christine came close to him and complied with the utmost willingness. The pin was a little blunt or rusted and it took her several seconds to put it in and fasten it. Their faces were almost on a level, and Noel's eyes looked closer than they had ever done before at her youthful loveliness. Hers were bent in complete absorption upon her task.

When she had fastened the pin she drew backward, still holding open the coat that she might see the cross in its new position. All the time she never looked at Noel, but all the time he looked at her.

"Thank you," she said simply.

Noel seemed stricken with silence. His mind was confused, and he did not know what to say. And Christine, wondering that he did not speak, lifted her large eyes to his face and looked at him questioningly. Then Noel remembered himself, and in perfect recollectedness and self-possession he took her hands and kissed them, first one and then the other.

"You have made me your knight," he said. "Let me never forget it. I am a knight of the Legion of Honor. I shall carry this cross about me always to remind me of it. Thank you, and bless you, Christine."

Then he dropped her hands, and they sat down and fell to talking. For the first time in his recent intercourse with her she was able to speak of general subjects. There was a momentary lull in her anxiety about the baby, and in her release from that recent and heavy burden she felt a rebound from the more remote causes of unhappiness too. So they got into a talk that was easy and almost bright. They spoke together of foreign lands familiar to them both, of music and painting, and all the things from which her present life divided her so completely that, as Christine said presently, it was like recalling dreams. And then in the midst of it Dallas came in, with his slovenly dress and horrible pipe, and Christine, with an awful look of recollectedness, came back to reality. It was impossible to take this man into a talk like theirs, and Noel quickly said good-night.



IX.

The next day and the next Christine went to the studio, and the sittings passed in almost total silence. It had become more than ever impossible for them to speak to each other, and they both realized it. Then came a day on which Noel waited in vain for Christine. When morning and afternoon were passed and he got no tidings he could bear the suspense no longer, and went to the house to inquire. Old Eliza, the negro servant, opened the door for him and told him the baby was dying. His heart grew cold within him. What would Christine do? How could she bear it? He asked if the doctor had been, and was told he was now up-stairs. He inquired for Dallas. "Gone to walk," Eliza said with contempt, and then added that "He might as well be one place as another, as he didn't do no good nowhar."

Noel saw the doctor, an elderly, capable, decided man, who, as he soon found, took in the whole situation and sympathized with Christine as heartily as he excoriated her husband. Noel said he was an old friend of Christine's, who was anxious to do all that was possible for her, and had the satisfaction of seeing that he had inspired Dr. Belford with confidence in him. He soon saw that it was unnecessary to ask the good physician to see that her wants and those of the child were supplied, as his own sympathies were thoroughly enlisted, so he could only beg to be notified of anything he could possibly do, and go sadly away.

When Noel came, early next morning, a scant bit of black drapery, tied with a white ribbon, told him that the thing had happened which deprived Christine of all she loved on earth. The desire of her eyes was taken from her and her house was left unto her desolate.

Eliza opened the door, and he came inside the hall and asked her a few questions. The baby had died about midnight, the woman said. Dr. Belford had stayed until it was over. The child was now prepared for burial, the mother having done everything herself, seeming perfectly calm. She would not eat, however, and was lying on the bed by the baby. He did not need to inquire for the father, for at the end of the hall was the dining-room, where he could see Dallas, with his back turned, seated at the table, evidently making a hearty breakfast, the smell of which smote offensively the visitor's nostrils. Noel felt he must get away, and yet the thought of Christine, lying up-stairs alone by her little dead baby, seemed to pull him by his very heartstrings.

He put some money into Eliza's hand, telling her to use it as she thought necessary, and then went away. He next sought Dr. Belford and sent a message to Christine, which he felt would fall as coldly as upon the ear of a marble statue, and then he went to a florist's and sent her a great heap of pure white flowers, which he thought she might care to put about the baby. This done he felt helpless, impotent and miserable.

The next morning he went with Dr. Belford and helped to lower into the earth the treasure of Christine's heart. There were but four persons present, the mother, the clergyman, the physician and himself. Dallas had slipped from the house early in the morning, telling Eliza he would not be back, deliberately shirking the unpleasantness of the occasion. He had never shown any love for the child, but a funeral was, in itself, a painful thing, and he ran away from it. This, at least, was the explanation given by Dr. Belford. Noel felt that the kind old doctor was the being who could best help Christine now, since he had been with her through the worst of her trial. So it was he who sat beside Christine as they drove through the crowded city streets, with the little white coffin on the seat opposite. Noel went in another carriage with the clergyman, to whom he told something of Christine's history, begging him to go see her and try to give her comfort, which he promised to do. It seemed a bitter thing to him that both these men seemed to have some place and position beside Christine—and he none! He looked at her during the short service, which tortured his heart with pain for her, but behind her thick veil her face was quite invisible, and her figure was still and cold as marble. He longed unspeakably to try to comfort her, but he felt he could not take one step until she gave some sign that she wanted him. He knew that Dr. Belford had told her that he wished to speak with her as soon as she could bear it, and now he must wait—no matter how long—until she signified her wish to have him come. She had sent him a message of thanks by Dr. Belford, and said she would see him when she could. With that he had to be content. He felt it useless to deny the plain fact that grief had crowded every thought of him out of her heart now.

Every day he sent her flowers—although he felt assured that they all found their way to the cemetery—and every day he went to Dr. Belford to find out how she was. The report was always the same—calm, uncomplaining, hopeless!

He longed to feel that Christine thought of him with some degree of comfort, but there was absolutely no foundation for such a hope. He had always felt a certain impatient scorn of the unfortunate, and to him totally uninteresting baby, whom Christine had loved with such idolatry, but now he found himself formulating a passionate wish that he could get back the child's life for her at the sacrifice of his own. He almost felt that he could consent to it.



X.

About two weeks after the death of the baby Dr. Belford called upon Noel. It was absolutely necessary, he said, to do something to rouse Christine from her state of hopeless lethargy. He had accordingly laid his plans to do this. He had discovered, through Eliza, that all the money furnished for the support of the establishment for some time past had come from Christine, and that Dallas even applied to his wife for money for tobacco and car-fares, pretending he went out looking for work.

"As far as I can understand," said Dr. Belford, "the creature has no strong vices—he is too bloodless and inane for them. Even when he had money it doesn't appear that he gambled, and I don't believe he drinks. He is simply wanting in principle, feeling and everything. Eliza says he has scarcely spoken to his wife, or she to him, since the baby died. Indeed she never speaks a word to any one beyond what is strictly necessary. This state of things cannot go on. I told Eliza yesterday to go and ask her for money, which she did. On the heels of it I went to her and told her you wanted to begin a new picture and could find no model so suitable as herself. I asked her if she would agree. She told me then that Eliza had come to her for money to carry on the house, and that she felt she must, in some way, earn it, as she would not owe tradespeople, who could not afford to lose by her. So she asked me to tell you she would begin the sittings to-morrow."

"What a friend you are, Doctor, to her and to me!" said Noel, grasping his companion's hand.

The doctor held his hand in a resolute pressure as he looked at him keenly and said:

"I think I know my man. At all events I'm going to trust you. I haven't much belief in saints, but unless you're a double-dyed scoundrel you will never betray this trust."

Noel answered nothing. The two men grasped hands a second longer and then, each satisfied with each, they parted.

When Christine came the next morning the pity that Noel felt for her almost overcame him. It was evident that the sight of the place brought up the saddest memories, and she appeared at the door empty-armed, instead of weighted down by her helpless little burden. The look on her face, as she threw back her veil, was almost more than he could bear. By a mute little gesture she seemed to implore him not to speak of what filled the minds of both, and he obeyed her. She gave him both her hands. He felt like falling on his knees before her, and controlled himself only by a strong effort. It seemed inhuman not to do something to help her, but what could he do?

"I'm so sorry for you," was all he could say.

"Don't speak. Don't make me speak. You know I thank you for everything. I can't talk."

Then, loosing his hands, she walked off to a window and stood looking out, while Noel chose a different canvas and busied himself with preparations for work. Presently she came and placed herself calmly, and Noel began to draw. Occasionally he said some little thing, and she assented, but they both soon felt that silence was the only thing. There was no suggestion of tears in her eyes, but their look was the sadder for that. When the sitting was ended Noel tried to make her take a glass of wine or some fruit, but she turned from them almost with distaste. As she was leaving, however, she asked if she might have the roses on the table. When Noel eagerly said yes she took the great bunch in her hand and went off—he well knew where!

After that she came daily, and the picture progressed, but she, the beautiful model, remained unchanged in her hopeless apathy and misery.

One day at the close of the sitting Noel, as usual, went from the studio to his law-office. The season was dull and his partner was out of town, so it devolved on him to read and attend to the mail. He had read half through the little pile of letters which he found awaiting his attention when he took up one bearing the name and address of a law firm in a Western town, with whom he and his partner had, from time to time, transacted business. He opened it abstractedly and began to run over the contents rather listlessly, when a name caught his eye that arrested his attention. The lawyers proposed to his partner and himself to cooperate with them in a case of bigamy. They had worked it up satisfactorily, they said, their client being the first wife of a man said to be now living with a second one in the city of Noel's residence. The man's name was Robert Dallas.

Noel sprang to his feet, while a dizziness that made him almost unconscious took possession of him. He fell back into his chair again, a chill running through all his veins. If it should be the man Christine had married so hastily in a foreign country—the father of her child! The horror of it overcame him so that for several moments he remained transfixed. Then he reflected that the name might be a mere coincidence, and took up the letter to finish it.

Every word he read strengthened the conviction that it was the Robert Dallas that he knew. There was a minute description of him, which corresponded perfectly, and the lawyer added that he had sent, by express, a photograph and specimens of his handwriting. Noel looked about him. An express parcel, which he had not noticed, lay on the table. He hastily cut the twine and opened it. There were papers and memoranda, and in an envelope a photograph. He tore it open and the weak, handsome face of the father of Christine's child confronted him. There was no longer a doubt of it; Christine, the innocent, the guileless, the confiding, the pure and sweet and lovely, had been betrayed, and by this creature, this miserable excuse for a man, whose dull and feeble beauty looked to him hideous as leprosy. What would become of her? How would she bear it? Who would take care of her when the great shock fell?

A sudden strength came into him. A force that had lain as silent and reserved as the force of steam in water surged forth at the fiery touch of the thought that had first come to him. He got up hastily and put the lawyer's letters and the parcel of papers into his iron safe and locked it. The photograph only he left out, and this he thrust into the inner pocket of his coat. As he was doing so it caught on something. It was his cross. A thought thrilled him. He was her knight of the Legion of Honor, and he felt that he had kept his trust!

He went out of the office, called a cab, and had himself driven to a street and number in a remote suburb of the city. In a quiet, pretty little house, overrun with vines, and facing a green and grassy public square as fresh and lovely as it was unfashionable, he stayed a long time, and when he emerged from it an elderly lady, dressed in black and with a white widow's cap set above her smoothly-brushed hair, came to the door with him and pressed his hand with a fervent "God bless you" as he was leaving her.

It was evident that he had inspired her with some of the ardent spirit that was animating him, for she looked eager and full of interest, and as she turned back within the house, when he had driven off, she had the manner of a person who had work to do that called forth her best energies and sympathies. Noel had the same air as he caused himself to be driven from place to place, in pursuance of some purpose which kept him occupied until far into the night.



XI.

Next morning when the hour for Christine's sitting came Noel was walking up and down in his studio with a face intensely pale from past sleeplessness and present excitement. He looked at his watch frequently, as if impatient, and yet the least sound made him start as if nervous and apprehensive. At last the sound he longed for and yet dreaded was heard, and he went to the door and threw it open for Christine to enter.

She came in without speaking, and throwing back her veil revealed her pale, sad face, with its look of passionless woe.

Noel took her hand as he closed the door behind her and inquired for her health. It was steadier than his, that little black-gloved hand. He felt reluctant to let it go as she withdrew it and began to take off her bonnet and gloves. When she had laid these on the table she ran her fingers with a pretty motion that he had often noticed through the loose masses of her dark hair, where it curved behind her ears. It was quite mechanical and showed an unconsciousness of self that Noel wondered whether he should ever see in her again.

She poured out a glass of water and drank half of it, and then said she was ready to begin. She looked tired, but she said she was not, and would like to begin if he were ready.

"Sit down, Christine," he said gently, "I am not ready to begin yet. I want to talk to you."

She looked surprised, but sank upon the lounge and he seated himself by her side. The utter lassitude of her expression made his task seem desperately hard to begin.

"I have something to tell you, dear Christine," he said, "but I want you to make me a promise first. If the few poor little services I have been able to render you, and the interest and sympathy I have tried to express to you have done anything at all, I think they must have convinced you that I am your true, devoted friend and that you can trust me. Tell me this, Christine; you do trust me—don't you?"

"More than any one on earth—but that is too little," she said hastily—"as much as I could ever have trusted any one—as much as I trusted those who have been unworthy—and with a feeling that the knowledge of their unworthiness could never affect a thing so high as my faith in you."

"Thank God that it is so. And now, Christine, I call the God we both adore and fear to witness that I will be true to your faith in me, to the last recess of my mind, no less than to the last drop of my blood. See, Christine, I swear it on my cross," and he drew it out, touching the picture as he did so. "Give me your hand," he said, "and we will hold this sacred cross between my hand and yours, and I will tell you this thing, and you must try to feel that I am not only your knight but also your dear brother, in whom all the confidence you have expressed to me is strengthened by the added bond of relationship. Christine, my sister, I want you to realize that there is an ordeal before you which it will take all the strength that you can summon to bear with fortitude. At first you will think it intolerable—impossible to be borne, and I do not pretend to tell you that the blow will not be awful, beyond words. I only want to say to you now, when you are calm enough to listen, that it is not so hopeless and terrible as it will look at first—that there is light beyond, though at first you may not be able to see it. Try to keep that in your mind if you can."

She had given him her hand and they clasped the cross between them. All the time that he was speaking she looked at him with a calm and unbelieving wonder in her large eyes. As he paused she shook her head with grave incredulousness and said quietly:

"You do not know me, Mr. Noel. I thought you understood a little, but you are wrong if you think there is anything you could tell me for which I should care so much. I do not suppose I could make you understand it, but my heart is dead and buried in my baby's grave, and nothing could make me feel as you expect me to feel. The two or three people that I—know" (Noel knew by the pause she made that she had wanted to say love, but couldn't, in honesty, use the word) "are all well. I have just come from them—even Dr. Belford I have seen to-day—but if you were going to tell me they were all dead I could not care a great deal—at least not in the way you expect me to care—for what you have to tell me. It may be wicked to have so hard a heart, but I cannot help it. There is absolutely nothing in all the world that could make me feel in the way you think I ought to feel at what you have to tell me."

"I did not say ought," said Noel, "there is no ought about it. It is a thing inevitable. Oh, Christine, there is no way to lead up to it. I must just tell you and beg you, for my sake at least, to try to bear it."

"You had better tell me," she said. "You will see how I can bear it."

The calm security of her tones, the passionless wonder of her quiet face were almost maddening. They made him fear the more the effect of the shock when it should come.

"Christine," he said quietly, though his heart was leaping, "it is something about your—about the man you married."

A faint flush came up in her face, and she averted her eyes an instant. Then she looked at him and said calmly:

"I thought you knew that long ago that became one of the subjects upon which I had ceased to feel deeply. If you think it is wrong of me to say this I cannot help it. He hated his little child. He never thought it anything but a trouble and a burden, and he was not sorry when it died. He is glad the trouble of it is over. He had long ceased to feel any love for me—if he ever had it—but if he had cared a little for the poor little baby I could have forgotten that; but he was cruel toward it in thought and feeling, and if I had not watched the treasure of my heart and guarded it unceasingly he would have been cruel to it in deed, too. I know it and Eliza knows it. Oh, why did you make me speak of it? I ought not to say such things. It is wrong."

"Why wrong, Christine? Why do you feel it to be wrong? Tell me."

"Because he is my husband," she said sternly, "and I took solemn vows to love, to serve and to obey him. I said 'for better or for worse.' I said 'till death us do part.' The God who will judge me knows whether I have kept them. The love one cannot control; but one can force one's self to serve and obey, and that I have tried to do."

"And you have done it. I have felt that I could kneel and worship you for it—but, Christine, the truth is too evident to be avoided. He is unworthy of you. Suppose you could be free from him?"

"Divorce?" she said with a sort of horror. "Never! I scarcely know what it is—but marriage seems to me a thing indissoluble and inviolate. I cannot forget that he is the father of my child. I could never wish, on that account, to be free from him."

"Christine, there is another way. Oh, my poor, poor child, you have never even thought of it, and it breaks my heart to tell you. But there is a way you might be free from him without divorce—a sad and dreadful way, my poor little sister, but remember, I implore you, that there is light beyond the darkness. Oh, cannot you think what I mean?"

She shook her head.

"I know he is not dead," she said; "there is no other way that I know."

"Suppose—my poor girl, try to be brave now, for you will have to know it—suppose your marriage to him was not legal—was no marriage at all?"

Her face got scarlet.

"That is not possible," she said, "and if it were, it would make no difference. If he did it without knowing—"

"Christine, Christine, he did not! He knew it, my child. Prepare yourself for the very worst. He deceived you wilfully. Oh, Christine, when he was married to you there was an impossible barrier between you. It was such a thing as you could not dream of. Give me your hands and try to feel that your brother bears this sorrow with you." He caught her other hand also and pressed them both between his own.

"Christine, he was married already. When he married you, he had already a wife and child."

She wrenched her hands away and sprang to her feet. A low cry broke from her. Noel felt that it was he who had applied the torture, and he saw her racked with agony and utterly heedless of the comfort he had offered, and had fondly hoped to give her.

"Have you proof for what you say?" she cried, her wild look of confusion and terror making her so unlike her usual self that he seemed not to know her. "I will never believe it without the strongest proof. It is too horrible, too awful, too deadly, deadly shameful to be true. Be quick about it. If there is proof, let me have it."

"Christine, there is proof. I have it here on the spot, but spare yourself, my poor, poor girl. Wait a little—"

"Don't talk to me of waiting. Let me see what you have got. Oh, can't you see that I can bear anything better than not to know? Show me what you have and if what you say is true—"

But she turned away as if his eyes upon her hurt her, and raised her arm before her face. In an instant she lowered it and said entreatingly:

"Oh, show me what you have. Have pity on me."

Noel took the envelope containing the picture from his pocket.

"This has been sent me by a lawyer," he said. "The woman is his client. She says he gave her this picture soon after they were married. Oh, Christine, don't look at it—"

But she walked toward him steadily and took the envelope from his hand. He could not bear to see her when her eyes rested on it, so he turned away and walked off a few paces, standing with his back toward her.

There was a moment's silence. He heard her slip the picture from the envelope, and he knew that she was looking at it. He heard his watch tick in the stillness, and her absolute silence frightened him. It lasted, perhaps, a moment more and then he turned and looked at her. She was standing erect with the picture in her hand. He saw that she had turned it over and that it was upon the reverse side that her eyes were fixed. There was some writing on it which he had not seen.

She held the photograph out to him, with an intense calm in her manner, but he saw that her nostrils quivered and her breath came short. Her hands were trembling, too, but her voice was steady as she said:

"I am convinced."

He glanced down at the picture and saw written on the back in a weak, uncertain hand which Christine had evidently recognized, "To my darling little wife, from Robert."

He felt her humiliation so intensely that he could not look at her, but he took a step toward her and was about to speak when she turned away and, with a tottering step, went toward the sofa and fell heavily upon it, her face buried in her hands. A long breath that was almost a groan broke from her, and then she lay very still, except that now and then a violent shiver would run all along her frame. Poor Noel! He felt the bitterness of the false position he had tried to occupy. If he had been indeed her brother, this awful grief might have spent itself, to some extent, in his arms. He felt that he was nothing to her, but his heart was none the less soft toward her for that.

Thrusting the picture back into his pocket, he drew a chair near to her, and sat down by her side. He wanted her to feel that he was there, in case she should find it in her heart to turn to him for a help he did not venture to intrude. It seemed a long while that they remained so, but at last Christine sat up, turning upon him a face so strange and terrible that he trembled at the look of it. Sorrow had seared it like a blight. She had been lying upon a seam in the lounge and it had left a red mark across her face. He thought it looked like the wound upon her heart made visible.

"I can never see him again," she said. "I cannot go home. Oh God, I have no home! It never was a home to me, except when my baby was in it. Oh, my baby boy!—my baby boy!—my little child that loved and clung to me! Oh, God was merciful to take you. My God, I see it now! I thank Thee, I thank Thee, I thank Thee!"

She fell on her knees on the floor, and then she threw herself forward on the couch, and hiding her face again shook from head to foot with great, tearless sobs.

"Oh, I am so glad he is dead! It is so sweet to me to think it! I would have had to look into his big, clear eyes that used to seem to read my very heart, and think of this! Oh, if only I could go and lie beside my baby, in the deep, still ground where the cruel eyes of men and women could not see us, I would want no other home. I have been lonely and miserable, lying in my bed at night, without him, and I have felt that he missed and needed me, as I did him. Oh, if only God would let me go to him, I would be willing to be put into his grave alive and wait for death to come! It would be easier than life with this thing branded on me."

"Branded on you! Oh, Christine, you must not say it. You will not be branded; you will be, as you have always been, best and purest and truest among women—to me at least. What have you ever been but an angel of nobleness and heroism and devotion to duty? Oh, Christine, I could worship you."

She rose to her feet and stood before him.

"I believe God will reward you in Heaven for those words," she said. "You are a man who can see as He sees, in truth and clearness, and you know, as He does, I have tried to do right. But what you do not know, what He alone can know, is how I have suffered—how every sacred feeling of my woman's heart has been torn and desecrated, and dragged to the earth, and how I endured it all, because I thought it was my duty—and all the time it was—Oh, I feel as if I don't know what may happen to me next to drag me deeper down in misery and sorrow. I thought the worst had come when my baby died, and now a thing so terrible has come as to make that the comfort that I hug to my soul."

She sank to a seat on the couch again, and Noel came and took the place at her side.

"Give me your hand," she said tremblingly. "Oh, I feel so frightened. Now that this has come I feel that the air is full of awful horrors that are waiting to fall upon me."

Noel took her hands in both his own, and she clung to them with a pitiful intensity.

"The worst is over," he said gently. "You have only to let me manage and think for you now—"

"Tell me," she said, "tell me all there is to know—how you found this thing out, and what will be done about it. You must tell it every word to me. I can bear it better now than ever to speak of it again."

And Noel told her, as mercifully and gently as he could, all that he had learned from the lawyer's statements. He wanted to show her how convincing and certain the proof was, that she might be justified in acting on it. She held his hands in a hard grasp and looked at him with excited, distended eyes as she listened to it all. The mixture of wildness and calm in her manner and looks positively terrified him. He feared her reason might be temporarily disturbed, and would have given worlds to see her cry and complain, but she heard him through with the same excited stillness.

"I have a safe and pleasant refuge for you for the present, Christine," he said. "I have arranged everything. A lady—a dear friend of mine, whose son was my friend and a man I loved devotedly—this lady will take you and care for you as a daughter. I have told her everything and she is waiting for you now, longing to love and comfort you. Her son is dead and she has often told me that I, as his friend, came next in her affections, and that she would do anything on earth to serve me. I was able to help him once and she never forgot it. So I went and told her all the truth. She has a mind as clean and simple as your own, Christine, and she is longing to love and comfort and take care of you. You will let me take you to her—will you not?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "God bless you for it. I could never go back there again," she added with a shudder, "but I must write a letter."

She rose hastily and Noel, wondering, brought her writing materials.

She wrote a hasty note, and sealing it, asked him to have it sent at once. To his surprise he found it was addressed to Dallas.

"I will give it to the janitor as we go down," he said. "Do you feel able to go now, Christine? A carriage will be waiting for us and I will take you to that dear woman who will make you feel as if your mother's arms were around you."

Christine was trembling in every limb, but she reached for her bonnet and tried to tie it on. Her hands shook so that she let it fall. Noel picked it up and held it a moment, saying soothingly:

"Don't hurry. We can wait a little while, if you wish. Try not to be too despairing. When you drive away from here to-day you leave the past behind you, and enter into a new and different life. Your new friend, Mrs. Murray, will know you only as you are now, and you may meet no one unless you wish to. She has very few friends herself, and she will tell them what she chooses of you. You will see she is not a woman that people will dare to ask questions of."

He stopped. A look so dreary, strange and full of anguish had come into Christine's face that he was alarmed and said quickly:

"What is it?"

She struck her hands together and uttered a low cry.

"What is my name?" she said, in a tone so wild and vacant he thought her mind was wandering. "It used to be," she said, passing one hand across her forehead, as if in an effort of memory—"it used to be Verrone—Christine Verrone, but I am not that happy-hearted girl the nuns used to call by that name. This is not Christine Verrone. The very flesh and blood and bones of this body are different—and surely in this mind and heart and soul there is no tinge nor remnant of that old Christine. How, then, can I be she? Oh! I have no home, no country, no dwelling-place on earth; I have not even a name to be called by!"

Noel could bear no more. Taking her hands in his, he held them firmly, and looking in her eyes, said fervently:

"Then take my name, Christine. Let me give you a home and friends, and call you by the name I bear. God knows I would feel honored in bestowing it upon you. If you will commit your precious life into my keeping—if you will marry me—"

The look of her eyes checked him. The meaning of his words had dawned upon her slowly, and to his infinite distress he saw that they filled her with pain.

"You are speaking out of pity for me. You think I would die beneath it, unless you sacrificed yourself and gave me the protection of your name," she said, speaking almost eagerly. "Tell me this is so. But you do not know how I feel. I can bear it somehow, or else I can die. I could never accept such a sacrifice from you, and, oh, I could never think of marriage again, even to the best and noblest creature on God's earth, without a shrinking that is pain intolerable."

Noel saw he had made a mistake. He saw, too, that the only way out of it was to let her put this interpretation on it. So he merely soothed and comforted her, and told her things should be as she chose, and then he tied her bonnet under her chin as if she had been a little girl, gave her her gloves, lowered the veil before her face and asked her if she were ready.

"You will take your sweet girl-name," he said, "and be known as Mrs. Verrone. Only Mrs. Murray and I will know anything of your past, and we will now turn that page, Christine, and go forth into a new world—and a brighter one, please God."



XII.

Christine was ill for many weeks, with Dr. Belford in daily attendance, and her faithful old Eliza to help Mrs. Murray with the nursing. All during the long fever, the gentle, little old lady, to whom Noel had confided her, watched and tended her with a mother's devotion and love. The patient was far too ill to protest, and very soon she learned to lean upon and love Mrs. Murray as though she had indeed been her mother. Again poor Noel felt himself banished, ignored and excluded, as he alone was kept away from her, but his care for her was so supremely above his care for himself that he never made a complaint.

He had learned from Eliza—whose mouth was shut so tight to the other servants that she went among them almost like a dumb woman—that on the day of his making the announcement concerning her husband to Christine, a messenger had brought Dallas a note, after reading which he had hurriedly put a few things into a valise and left the house. Since then he had not been heard from. Evidently Christine had warned him in her note and he had run away to escape the suit for bigamy. Noel had not suspected the poor girl's motive in writing, but, on the whole, he was glad. It was the simplest and surest way of getting rid of him.

At last Dr. Belford had pronounced the patient convalescent, and she was sitting up and even moving about the up-stairs rooms.

One afternoon Noel came to the house, as usual, to make inquiries. As he mounted the steps he saw that by some accident the door had been left ajar. He bethought him to go in softly, in the hope of finding Mrs. Murray in one of the lower rooms and taking her by surprise. He had bought a big bunch of crimson roses on the way. He crossed the hall softly and made his way to the cozy little sitting-room, attracted by the flickering light of a wood fire, which looked cheery and comfortable on a day like this. It was burning rather low, but the room was still partly lighted from without, and as he was about to cross the threshold he saw a picture which made him pause.

On a deep lounge half turned toward the fire a girl in white was lying fast asleep. It was Christine. Her dark hair was all gathered loosely back and coiled in a large knot low down against her fair throat, from which the white lace of her gown fell backward, leaving its beautiful pureness bare. There was a charming air of foreign taste and fashioning about the whole costume. Poor Christine! She had put it on obediently when Mrs. Murray had brought it to her, selecting it from among the contents of her trunk as the most comfortable and suitable thing for the convalescent to wear. It had been long since she had worn or even looked at it, and it had brought back sad memories of her pretty wedding outfit, but all her clothes had sad associations for her, and the ones she had worn more recently would have been worse than this. So she put it on unquestioningly, too listless to care much what she wore, a fact which did not prevent its being exquisitely suitable to her.

She was very white, and the long black lashes that lay against her cheek made a dark shadow under her eyes that made her look the more fragile. Her face was infinitely sad; the corners of the mouth drooped piteously, and a look of trouble now and then slightly contracted the brows.

Noel, who had cautiously drawn near, was seated in a low chair near her feet, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of waking her, and breaking the spell which seemed to hold him, also, in a sleep of enchantment. He made up his mind deliberately that he would remain and be near her when she waked. He had kept himself away from her long enough. Now he must see and talk with her. He sat so for some time, the red roses in his hands, and his steady, grave, intense dark eyes fastened upon her face. Presently a long, deep sigh escaped her, and the fair figure on the lounge moved slightly, and then settled into more profound repose. It was evident that she was sleeping soundly. A thought occurred to Noel, and moving with infinite cautiousness and slowness he took the roses one by one and laid them over her white dress. One of her arms was raised above her head, so that her cheek rested against it, and the other lay along her side, the hand relaxed and empty.

As he was putting the last rose in its place, he observed this little, fragile left hand particularly and saw a thing that made his heart throb: the wedding-ring was gone from it. Christine was free indeed! Here was the sign and token before his very eyes. Being free he might win her for his own. The force of his love in this minute seemed strong enough for any task. Oh, if he could only be patient! He felt it very hard—the hardest task that could beset him, but he gathered all the strength that was in him for a great resolve of patience. The sacredness of it rendered it a prayer.

And Christine slept on profoundly. He had known each moment that she might wake and discover him, but he felt himself prepared for that. He looked at her and realized that she was well, for in spite of her pallor, she had the look of youthful health and strength, and he said to himself that his banishment was over and the time to set himself to the task before him was come.

As he kept his eyes upon her lovely face a sudden little smile lifted, ever so slightly, the corners of her mouth, as if there were pleasure in her dream. The man's heart thrilled to see it. If a dream could make her smile—if the power to smile remained to her—reality should do it, too. If he could just be patient! If he could keep down the longing in his heart that clamored for relief in uttered words!

A piece of wood upon the fire fell apart, sending up a bright little blaze. The sound of it wakened Christine. Still with the memory of that dream upon her she opened her eyes, and met Noel's gaze fixed on her in sweet friendliness and gladness. For an instant neither spoke. Christine's large eyes, clear as jewels in the firelight, gazed at him across the bank of crimson roses that seemed to send a red flush to her face.

Noel spoke first.

"All right again, at last!" he said, with a cheering smile. "Have you had a pleasant nap?"

And he leaned forward and held out his hand.

A rush of sad remembrance came over Christine's face. The lines of her mouth trembled a little and she dropped her eyes as she took his hand in both her own and pressed it silently. Noel knew the touch meant only gratitude, and it left him miserably unsatisfied, but he felt himself strong to wait. She dropped his hand, and for a moment covered her face with her own, as if to collect herself thoroughly. Then she sat upright in her seat, scattering the roses to the floor. Noel knelt to gather them up for her, and when he had collected the great mass into a gorgeous bunch he knelt still as he held them out to her.

She took them, hiding her face in their glowing sweetness, and Noel, rising, walked a few steps away, feeling it impossible to speak, unless he allowed himself the words he had forsworn.

At this instant a cheery voice was heard in the hall.

"Who in the world left the front door open?" it said, in energetic, matter-of-fact tones, at the sound of which Noel felt suddenly fortified.

Mrs. Murray had entered just in time, for the sight of Christine here alone had been almost too much for the resolutions of reserve in which he had flattered himself he was so strong.



XIII.

In a little while the lives of Mrs. Murray and Christine had settled into a calm routine of work and talk, and the simple recreations of reading and house-decorating which were the only ones that Christine ever seemed to think of. She never went out, and worked with as much application as Mrs. Murray would permit at the embroidery which, at her earnest request, the wise old lady had got for her. She and Christine had a frank and loving talk, in which one was as interested as the other, in Christine's making her own living, and in which it was settled, to the joy of each, that their home in future was to be together. They were days of strange peace and calm for poor Christine, and her heart would swell with gratefulness for them, as she sat over her beautiful embroidery, which was in itself a pleasure to her.

But the evenings were the best of all, for then Noel invariably came—sometimes to look in and say a bright and cheery word, on his way to keep an engagement, sometimes to give them the benefit of the bright stories and good things he had heard at a dinner, and sometimes to spend a whole long evening, talking, laughing and reading aloud from new magazines and books which he brought with him in abundance. These were the sorts of delights utterly unknown to Christine before. She had read very little, and the world of delight that reading opened up to her was new, inspiring and enchanting. Noel read aloud his favorite poets, their two young hearts throbbing together, and their eyes alight with feeling at the passages which left the matured heart of Mrs. Murray undisturbed.

It had been in vain that Mrs. Murray had tried to induce Christine to sing. It occurred to her at last to put it in the light of a favor to herself, and when she told Christine that she loved music very dearly, and rarely had an opportunity to hear it, the girl went at once and played and sang for her, and then Mrs. Murray used the same argument—that of giving a friend pleasure—with regard to Noel. At first it was difficult and awkward, but before very long Christine and Noel were singing duets together, and music now became a delightful part of their evening's entertainment. How dull the evenings were when Noel did not come!—for sometimes there were engagements from which he could not escape. Mrs. Murray missed him much herself and it pleased her to be sure that Christine did also. Sometimes he would come late after a dinner, and if it were only a brief half-hour that he spent with them it made the evening seem a success, instead of a failure.

After a little while Mrs. Murray succeeded in inducing Christine to take walks with her along those quiet unfashionable streets, in the bracing air of the late autumn afternoons. She would return from these expeditions so refreshed, with such a charming color in the fair, sweet face to which peace and love and protecting companionship had given an expression of new beauty, that Mrs. Murray would be half protesting at the thought that the people that passed it, in the street, were deprived of a sight of its loveliness by that close, thick veil, which it never seemed to occur to Christine to lay aside. It seemed an instinct with her, and her good friend felt hurt to the very heart when she thought what the instinct had its foundation in.

In proportion as the influence of these days and weeks brought peace and calm to Christine, to Noel they brought an excited restlessness. He was under the spell of the strongest feeling that he had ever known. All the circumstances of his intercourse with Christine, the difficult self-repression to which he had compelled himself so long, and the sudden sense of her freedom which made vigilance harder still—all these things together brought about in him a state of excitement that kept him continually on a strain. It was only in her presence that he was calm, because it was there that he recognized most fully the absolute need of calmness and self-control. Away from her, he sometimes rushed into rash resolves, as to a resolute manly sort of wooing which he felt tremendously impelled to, and in which he felt a power in him to succeed. He would even make deliberate plans, and imagine himself going to the house and insisting on seeing Christine alone, and then his thoughts would fairly fly along, uttering themselves in excited words that burned their way to Christine's heart and melted it.

But when, in actuality, he would come to where she was, all these brave and manful purposes faded, like mist, before the commanding spell of her deep and solemn calm. She seemed so tranquil in her assured sense of his simple friendliness that he often thought she must have forgotten entirely, in the excitement that followed, that he had offered her his heart and hand and name, or else that she was so convinced of the fact that it had been done in pity that she had never given it a second thought.

So perplexed, bewildered, overwrought did he become with all these thoughts that he forced himself to make some excuse and stay away from Christine. When at last he went again, it was late in the evening and his time, he knew, would be short. It was three days now since he had been, and his blood flowed quick with impatience. He had thought of little else as he sat through the long dinner, eating the dishes set before him while he talked with a certain preoccupation to the beautiful debutante whom he had brought in, and who made herself her most fascinating for him, Noel being just the sort of man to represent such a girl's ideal—older, graver, more finished in manner than herself, and possessed of the still greater charm of being thoroughly initiated in all the mysteries of the great world, across whose threshold only she had seen. She was exceedingly pretty, and Noel was too much an artist not to be alive to it, but as he looked at the fair, unwritten page her face represented to him, he was seeing, in his mind's eye, that far lovelier face on which the spiritualizing, beautifying hand of sorrow had been laid. He had not gone thus far on his journey of life without deep suffering himself, and the heart that had suffered was the one to which he felt his true kinship. At the close of the dinner the whole party adjourned to the opera, Noel alone excusing himself, at the door of the debutante's carriage, on the plea of an important engagement. The lovely bud looked vexed and disappointed, but Noel knew his place at her side would be abundantly filled, and got himself away with all the haste decorum permitted.

When he rang at Mrs. Murray's door Harriet ushered him into the little drawing-room where Christine was seated at the piano singing. Mrs. Murray was not present. Motioning the servant not to announce him he took his position behind a screen, where he could see and hear without being seen. Christine had heard neither his ring nor his entrance, so she was utterly unconscious of any presence but her own, and indeed most probably not of that, for there was a strange abandonment to sway of the song as her voice, rich and full and deep, sang softly:

"I am weary with rowing, with rowing, Let me drift adown with the stream. I am weary with rowing, with rowing, Let me lay me down and dream."

Noel knew the little song well, and in his fancy the full, pathetic voice gave it a sound and meaning that his longing heart desired to hear in it. The thrilling voice sang on, low and deep and full:

"The stream in its flowing, its flowing, Shall bear us adown to the sea. I am weary with rowing, with rowing, I yield me to love and to thee. I can struggle no longer, no longer, Here in thine arms let me lie, In thine arms which are stronger, are stronger Than all on the earth, let me die."

The sweet voice trembled as the song came to an end, and Christine, with a swift, impulsive movement, put her elbows on the keys of the piano, making a harsh discord of sound, and dropped her face in her hands. She remained so, without moving, for several minutes, while Noel, thrilling in all his senses to the power of that subtly sweet song, kept also profoundly still. He felt it was his only safety. If he had moved, it must have been to clasp her in his arms.

At last she rose to her feet and began to put the music in order. It was a moment when life, for each of them, seemed very hard. And yet, to one who looked and saw them so, it seemed as if the best that earth could offer might be theirs, and that they were made and fashioned to have and to enjoy it.

The pretty room was a soft glow of firelight and lamplight mingled. The rich harmonies of dark color made by carpets, hangings and furniture were lighted here and there by an infinite number of the charming little things that are the perfecting touches of a tasteful room. A bunch of freshly-gathered autumn leaves was massed under the light from the shaded lamp. Near by sat Christine. She had taken up a strip of gorgeous embroidery in her hands, and was bending above it and trying hard to put her stitches in with care. To-night there was a steady flush in her cheeks that made her look more beautiful than he had ever seen her. He advanced a step or two, and stood, unseen, at a little distance from her, making unconsciously a complement to the picture. He took a step forward—and she heard the sound and lifted her head. He came nearer and his voice was sweet and thrilling as he said her name:

"Christine."

She raised her eyes and looked at him; but they dropped before his steady gaze, and she did not answer.

"Let me speak to you a little, dear Christine," he went on, taking a seat near her. He had himself well in hand and was determined not to blunder. Christine sat opposite and drew her needle through and through, saying neither yes nor no. "I want to be very careful not to hurt you," Noel went on, "but I have had it on my mind a long, long time to talk to you about yourself. Do you intend to lead always, without change or variation, the isolated, dull, restricted life you are leading now?"

"Oh, don't speak to me of any change!" she said entreatingly. "You have been so good to me. Be good to me still. Let me stay here, as I am, in this heaven of rest and peace. Mrs. Murray will keep me. She is not tired of me. She loves to have me, and it is my one idea of blessedness and comfort and rest."

Her voice was agitated almost to tears, and she had dropped her work and clasped her hands together with a piteousness of appeal.

"No one will hinder you, Christine," he said. "Mrs. Murray is made better and brighter and happier by your presence every day, and it would be only the greatest grief to her to part with you. This is your sure and safe and certain home as long as she lives, unless, of your own choice, you should choose to change it."

Christine shook her head with a denial of the thought that was almost indignant.

"Never," she said, "oh, never, never! I only ask to stay here, as I am, until I die."

"Christine," he said, and she could feel his strong gaze on her, through her lowered lids, "try to be honest with your own heart. Listen to its voice and you will have to own you are not happy."

"Happy! How could I ever expect to be? It would be a shame to me even to think of it. Oh, you do not know a woman's nature, or you could not talk to me of happiness."

"I know your woman's nature, Christine—well enough to reverence it and kneel to it, and I am not afraid to tell you you are outraging and wronging it, by shutting out happiness from your heart. What is there to hinder you from being happy? And oh, Christine, I know at least, there is no happiness but love."

A silence, solemn and still as death, followed these fervent, low-toned words. He could see the fluttering of her breath, and the look of deep, affrighted pain upon her face made his heart quiver.

"Christine," he murmured in a voice grown softer and lower still, "try not to be frightened or distressed. I cannot hold back my heart any longer. I love you—dear and good and noble one. If you could only love me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could, Christine, and as for me—why my life, if you refuse me your love, is worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my happiness, as surely as I, if you will let me, can make yours."

He would not venture to take her hand, but he held out his to her, saying in a voice that had sunk to a whisper:

"Only put your hand in mine, Christine, in token that you will try to love me a little, and I will wait for all the rest."

He had bent very close to her, and she felt his breath against her hair as his passionate whisper fell upon her ear. Her heart thrilled to it, but she got up stiffly to her feet, bending her body away from him and covering her eyes, for a moment, with her hand.

Noel, who had risen too, stepped backward instantly. He saw her lips compressed convulsively as if in pain, and, for her sake, he thrust down into his heart its great longing, and forced himself to think of her alone. It cut him like a knife to see that she drew away from him.

"Don't shrink from me, Christine," he said. "If it distresses you for me to speak I can be silent. I was obliged to tell you, but there it can stop. I have laid the offering of my love and life before you and there it is for you to take or leave. Perhaps I have startled you. If you will only think about it and try to get used to the idea—"

But Christine had found her voice.

"I cannot think of it!" she cried. "I utterly refuse to think of it. Oh, I am more miserable than ever I have been yet! If I am to make you unhappy—if I am to spoil your life—"

"You have beautified and glorified and crowned it with love, Christine. I should have gone to my grave without it, if you had not given it to me. It is a godlike thing to feel what I feel for you. Come what may I shall never be sorry for it. You have nothing to reproach yourself with."

Christine was very pale. She felt herself trembling as she sank into a chair and clasped her hands about her knee. Noel too sat down, but farther away from her than he had been before.

"I entreat you not to be distressed—" he began, but she interrupted him.

"Oh, I feel—I cannot tell you what I feel," she said. "Was ever a woman at once so honored and so shamed? How could I give to any man a ruined life like mine, and yet God knows how it is sweet to me to know you have this feeling for me—to know that I may still arouse in such a heart as yours this highest, holiest, purest, best of all the heart can give. Oh, I pray God to let you feel and know the joy it is to me—and yet I'd rather cut off my right hand than listen even to the thought of marrying you."

Noel could not understand her. The look in her face completely baffled him.

"Christine," he said, "there is but one thing to do. On one thing alone the whole matter rests. Look at me."

His voice was resolute, though it was so gentle, and in obedience to its bidding Christine raised her eyes to his.

"Answer me this, Christine. Do you love me?"

And looking straight into his eyes she answered:

"No."

Noel rose from his seat and crossed over to the fire, where he stood with his back toward her. He did not see the passionate gesture with which she strained her clasped hands to her breast a moment and then stretched them out toward him. In a second she withdrew them and let them fall in her lap. Her heart reproached her for the falseness of her tongue, and this had been a passionate impulse of atonement to him for the wrong that she had done. But stronger than her heart was the other voice that told her to make her utmost effort to keep up the deceit, for in the moment that the knowledge came to her that her heart, for the first time, was possessed by a true and mighty love an instinct stronger than that love itself compelled her to deny it—to give any answer, go any length, do anything sooner than make an admission by which she might be betrayed into doing a great and ineradicable wrong to the man she loved. Yes, the man she loved! For one second's space she let the inward flame leap up, and then she forced it back and smothered it down, with all the power that was in her.

When Noel turned, his face was calm and he spoke, too, in a controlled and quiet voice.

"We will not be the less friends for this, Christine," he said; "the best that is left to me is to be near you when I can. You will not forbid me this?"

He saw that her eyes consented. To save her life she could not deny him this—or deny herself. Which was it that she thought of first?

"I think it best that Mrs. Murray should not know of it," he said, and again she consented without speaking.

"I shall come as usual," he went on, "and, Christine, never reproach yourself. Never dream but that it is more joy than I could ever have had in any other way, only to come and see you and be near you and hear you speak sometimes. Good-night," he added, taking her cold, little hand in a gentle clasp. "It is the last time. You will see how faithful I will be. But once for all—Christine, Christine, Christine!—let me tell you that I love you with as great and true and strong a love as ever man had for woman. You seem to me a being between earth and Heaven—better than men and women here, and only a little below the angels."

She felt the hand that held hers loose its hold, the kind voice died away, a door far off shut to, and Christine, rousing herself, looked about her and found that she was alone.



XIV.

Two evenings later Noel called again, finding Mrs. Murray recovered and able to join the group around the table as usual. There was no consciousness expressed in the eyes of either Christine or himself as they met. At first she was very grave and silent, but under the influence of his easy talk her manner became perfectly natural, and at the close of the evening she found herself wondering if the exciting occurrences of their last meeting could be reality. Noel read aloud most of the evening an agreeable, unexciting book, and Christine thanked him from her heart that he did not ask, as usual, for music.

As for Mrs. Murray, as the days went on she found herself continually wondering that such a state of things could last. She was perfectly sure of Noel's feeling, and she thought its continued entire suppression very strange. She was often tempted to make some excuse to leave them alone, but a fear of the consequences held her back, for she was absolutely unable to calculate upon Christine. She had not the courage to lift a finger in the matter.

Almost imperceptibly a change was coming over Christine, and by degrees Mrs. Murray became aware of it. She grew more silent and fond of being alone. She even went out now and took long, companionless walks, coming home exhausted and preoccupied. "Poor girl!" thought her kind, old friend. "She is very unhappy, and for a little while, in her deliverance from a worse unhappiness, she had managed to forget it partly."

On one occasion Noel rather urgently pressed the matter of being allowed to bring his mother and sisters to call. He did so in the hope that time might have somewhat modified Christine's feeling in the matter, but he found it absolutely unchanged and was obliged to withdraw his request.

As the days and weeks went by Noel became every day more restless and gloomy. He was unhappy if he stayed away from Christine, and yet to be in her presence merely as a friendly visitor was often galling and depressing to an almost intolerable degree. He scarcely ever saw her alone for a moment, and he had a certain conviction that while Mrs. Murray did some gentle plotting to leave them tete-a-tete Christine managed ingeniously to thwart her plans.

About this time he was compelled to go away for a week on a business expedition, and so, for more than that space of time, he had not called at Mrs. Murray's. When he rang the door-bell on the evening of his return Harriet, who answered it, left him to find his way alone to the pretty sitting-room, warm and lighted and empty, as he thought. The next instant, however, his heart gave a bound, as he saw at its opposite end Christine, tall and slight and young and beautiful, standing, with her back turned, before a table against the wall, on which a large engraving rested.

It was heavily framed and he knew he had never seen it there before. The fact was Mrs. Murray, who had a very romantic heart, had seen it in a shop-window and impulsively bought it, and it had just been sent home.

Noel, stepping with the utmost caution over the thick carpet, came near enough to look at the picture over Christine's shoulder. He knew it well. It was Frederick Leighton's "Wedded."

As the man and woman stood before it each was under the spell of that beautiful representation of abandonment to love—the deep and holy wedded love which is the God-given right of every man and woman who lives and feels.

Christine was utterly unconscious of his nearness as she bent toward it eagerly. He could see by the movement of her throat and shoulders that her breaths were coming thick and fast and her heart was beating hard. As for him the fact that he was near to her was the supreme consciousness of that moment to him, and all the meaning of this consciousness was in his voice, as he whispered her name:

"Christine!"

She started and turned. His eyes caught hers and held them. For a moment she found it impossible to release them from his compelling gaze. She was under the spell of the picture still. It had broken down the habitual barriers of restraint and self-control, and sent an exultant gleam into her heart, which her face reflected.

"Christine!" he said again in that thrilling whisper.

The sound of his voice recalled her. That strange, exalted look gave place to another, which was as if a withering blight had crossed her face, and she turned and looked at Noel. He met that look of desolation and anguish with firm, unflinching eyes.

"I love you," he whispered low, but clear.

"Then spare me," she whispered back.

"Once more, Christine," he said. They kept their places, a few feet apart, and neither moved a muscle except for the slight motion of their lips, from which the faint sounds came forth like ghostly whispers. "Once more, Christine—answer me this. Do you love me?"

And again she answered:

"No."

The tone in which she said it was strong and steady in spite of its lowness, and the eyes confirmed it.

The suspense was over. With that strange recollectedness which human beings often have in the sharpest crises of their lives Noel suppressed the great sigh that had risen from his heart, and let the breath of it go forth from his parted lips, with careful pains to make no sound.

It was a relief to both that at this moment Mrs. Murray came into the room. They turned abruptly from the picture, and in the cordial greeting which the hostess bestowed upon her guest the moment's ordeal was successfully passed. Not, however, without the watchful eyes of Mrs. Murray having seen much, and conjectured far more. Whether her impulse in buying the picture had done good or harm she was puzzled to determine.



XV.

Noel, during the sleepless hours of the night which followed, looked the whole situation in the face and made his resolutions, strong and fast, for the future of Christine and himself. His love for her, which she had not forbidden and could not forbid, must be enough for him henceforth, and because all his soul desired her love in return she should not, for that reason, be deprived of his friendship. When he thought of loving any other woman, and being loved by her in return, and contrasted it with the mere right to love Christine and be near her, forever unloved, he felt himself rich beyond telling.

That evening, determined to put into effect at once this new resolution and conveying some hint of it to Christine, he went to Mrs. Murray's. He rang the bell and entered the house with a strong sense of self-possession, which was only a very little disturbed when the maid again ushered him into the little drawing-room where he found Christine alone.

He could see that his coming was utterly unexpected. The lamp, by which she usually sat at work, was not lighted, and the gas in the hall cast only a dim light upon her here, but the fire lent its aid in lighting up the figure. She was lying on the lounge before the fire as he came in, but she rose to her feet at once, saying, in a voice whose slight ring of agitation disturbed a little farther yet his self-poised calm:

"Mrs. Murray has gone to see a neighbor whose daughter is very ill. They have just moved to the house and have no friends near, and she went to see what she could do. She will be back very soon. She did not think you would come to-night."

Noel heard the little strained sound in her voice, and fancied he saw also about her eyes a faint trace of recent tears; but the light was turned low and she stood with her back to it, as if to screen herself from his gaze. A great wave of tenderness possessed his heart. He felt sure he could trust himself to be tender and no more, as he said gently:

"Christine, have you been crying—here all alone in the darkness, with no one to comfort and help you to bear? The thought of it wrings my heart."

"Oh, it is nothing," she said, her voice, in spite of her, choking up. "I sometimes get nervous—I am not used to being alone. It is over now. I will get the lamp—"

But he stopped her. He made one step toward her and took both her hands in his.

"Wait," he said, in a controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces, so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which he gave himself to make this rally a sudden influence came over him from the contact of the cold hands he held in his. At first it was a subtle, faint, indefinite sensation, as of something strange and wonderful and far away, but coming nearer. The very breath of his soul seemed suspended, to listen and look as he waited. The clock ticked on, and they stood there motionless as statues. Suddenly a short, low sigh escaped Christine, and he felt her cold hands tremble. The swift consciousness that ran through Noel was like living ecstasy injected in his veins. He drew her two hands upward and crushed them against his breast.

"Christine," he said, "you love me."

She met his ardent, agitated gaze with direct, unflinching eyes.

"Yes," she said distinctly, "I love you," but with the exertion of all her power she shook herself free from his grasp, and sprang away from him to the farthest limit of the little room.

"Stop," she said, waving him back with her hand. "I have owned the truth, but I must speak to you—"

As well might Christine have tried to parley with a coming storm of wind. The chained spirit within Noel had been set free by the words, "Yes, I love you," that Christine had spoken, and his passionate love must have its way. He followed her across the room, and with a gentle force, against which she was as helpless as a child, he compelled her to come into his arms, to put down her head against his shoulder and to rest on his her bounding heart. He held her so in a close, restrictive pressure, against which she soon ceased to struggle, but lay there still and unresisting.

"Now," he said gently, speaking the low word softly and clearly in her ear, "now, speak, and I will listen."

"I love you," she said brokenly.

Their full hearts throbbed together as he answered:

"That is enough."

"It is all—the utmost," she went on. "I can never marry you. When you loose me from your arms to-night it will be forever. Hold me close a little longer while I tell you."

Her voice was faint and uncertain; her frame was trembling; he could feel the whole weight of her body upon him, as he held her against his exultant heart, while the power that had come into him gave him a strength so mighty that he supported the sweet burden as if its weight were nothing.

"Go on," he murmured gently, in a secure and quiet tone, "I am listening."

"I only want to tell you, if I can, how much I love you. I want you to know it all, that the torment of having it unsaid may leave me."

Of her own will she raised her arms and put them about his neck, laying down her face on one of them, so that her lips were close against his ear.

"At the first," she said, "I liked and admired you because I saw you were good and noble. Then I trusted you, and made your truth my anchor in the awful seas of trouble I was tossed in. Then I came to reverence and almost worship you for the highness that is in you, and then, oh, then after my baby died and my other dreadful sorrow came, against my will, in spite of hard fighting and struggling and trying, I went a step higher yet and loved you, with a love that takes in all the rest—that is admiration, and trust, and reverence, and love in one. Oh," she said with a great sigh, "but it is all in vain! I cannot tell you—I cannot! I say the utmost, and it seems pale and poor and miserably weak. You do not understand the love you have called into being in my poor, broken heart. I thought I should have the comfort of feeling I had told you. I feel only that I have failed! Oh, before we part, I want you to know how I love you—how the stress of it is bursting my heart—how the mightiness of it seems to expand my soul until it touches Heaven. Oh, if I could only ease my heart of its great weight of love by finding words to tell you."

He put his lips close to her ear.

"One kiss," he said softly, and then turned them to meet hers.

Christine gave him the kiss, and it was as he had said. The stress upon her heart was loosened. She felt that she had told him all.

"You are mine," he said, in a calm, low voice of controlled exultation, although, even as he said it, he loosed her from his arms and suffered her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.

"No," she said, "I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by. To-night must be the very last of it."

"Mr. Noel!" he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful laugh. "You can never call me that again, without feeling it the hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!"

The assured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten her. She saw the struggle before her assuming proportions that made her fear for herself—not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:

"I will never marry you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because—ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that thought plead for me."

"It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours."

"But if you know that you make me suffer—"

"I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy, beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every association of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no one will know us for anything but what we are—what alone we shall be henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united in the holy bond of marriage, which God has blessed—just a husband and wife, Christine—get used to the dear names and thought—with whose right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea of the past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves, Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I'll engage to make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs. Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not, Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me—just as surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting your consent to be my wife."