think it worth while to attempt to reclaim this lost sinner, on whom sentence has been passed without appeal?"

"No."

She spoke this 'No' in a freezing tone. The young man's face twitched a little as he drew himself up quickly.

"You are more than sincere! Never mind, it is an advantage to know exactly on what footing we are to be together, for together we must remain for a time, at all events. The step we took yesterday cannot be recalled immediately, without exposing us both to ridicule. If you provoked this scene with a view to showing me, that though my presumption had won your hand, yet I must learn to hold myself at a respectful distance from the Baroness Windeg--and I fear this was your sole object--you have gained your end, but"----here Arthur relapsed into his old languid manner, "but I beg of you, let this be the first and last conversation of the kind between us. I detest everything which resembles a scene; my nerves really will not bear them, and it is always possible to regulate one's life without any such useless excitement. And now I think I shall best meet your wishes by leaving you alone. Allow me to wish you good evening."

He took up from the sideboard a silver candelabra, in which lights were burning, and left the room. Outside the threshold he stopped a moment and turned to look back. The gleam in his eyes was no longer faint, it blazed up for one second clear and bright; then all grew dull and lifeless once more, but the candles flared unsteadily as he crossed the anteroom, possibly from the current of air, or was it because the hand which carried them shook a little?

Eugénie remained alone. She drew a deep breath of relief as the portière fell behind her husband. As though needing some fresh air after so painful a scene, she drew the curtains back, half opened the window, and, stepping on to the balcony, looked out at the balmy spring evening. The stars shone faintly through the thin transparent clouds which veiled the heavens, and the landscape without looked indistinct and shadowy, for the deep twilight had already fallen, clothing it on all sides with its dusky garment The flowers on the terrace below filled the air with their fragrance, and the low splash of the fountains came refreshingly to the ear. Peace and rest were everywhere--everywhere but in the heart of the young wife, who, to-day, for the first time, had crossed the threshold of her new home.

It was over at last, the dumb torturing struggle of the last two months, through which she had been supported by the pain and by the ardour of the fight itself. For heroic natures there is something grand in the idea of giving up one's whole future for others, of buying their salvation with the happiness of one's own life, of sacrificing one's self in their stead to an inexorable destiny. But now when the sacrifice was made, when deliverance had been secured, when there was nothing left to fight for, and nothing to overcome, now all the romantic glamour, which filial love had hitherto woven round Eugénie's resolve, faded away, and she began to feel deeply the cold desolation of the life before her.

The breezy, balmy air of the spring evening seemed to stir in its depths all the long-repressed anguish of this young soul, which had demanded its share of love and happiness from life, and which had been so cruelly robbed of its lawful due. She was young and beautiful, more beautiful than most, she was of a noble old race; and the proud daughter of the Windegs had ever adorned the hero of her youthful dreams with all the brilliant chivalry of her forefathers. That he should be her equal in name and rank was a thing never questioned .... and now? Had the husband, who had been forced upon her, possessed that energy and strength of character which she prized above everything in a man, she might, perhaps, have forgiven him his plebeian birth; but this weakling, whom she had despised before she had known him----Had the insults, which she, with fullest intent, had heaped upon him, and which would have stung any other man to fury, even roused him from his apathetic indifference? Had this apathy of his been shaken even for one moment by the open expression of her contempt? Another, a stranger, must throw himself before the maddened animals this morning, at the risk of being trampled to death by them.

Before Eugénie's mental vision rose the face of her deliverer with its defiant blue eyes and bleeding forehead. Her husband did not even know whether this man's wound were dangerous, whether it might not prove mortal, yet both he and she must have perished but for that energetic, lightning-like deed.

She sank back into a seat and hid her face in her hands. All that she had suffered and fought against for months pressed in on her now with tenfold power, and found utterance in the one despairing cry, "My God! my God! how shall I bear this life?"