"Is Mr. Morris of the opinion that this is the best thing to be done?"
asked Calvert, in a low voice.

"He thinks it is the only way to save d'Azay." Suddenly she came forward
from the embrasure of the window and stood once more beside the table,
her face lighted up by the glow of the fire. "Believe me, I know how
great a thing I ask," she says, quite wildly, and covering her eyes with
her hand. "I ask you now what you once asked me and what I flung away."
Calvert looked up startled, but not being able to read her face, which
was concealed, he dropped his head again, and she went on: "If it is
possible for you to make this sacrifice, everything I can do to make it
bearable shall be done--we need never see each other again--I can follow
d'Azay to whatever retreat he may find----"

"Don't distress yourself so," said Calvert, gently, interrupting her. He
looked at the appealing, despairing woman before him, she who had been
so brilliant, so untouched by sorrow, and a great desire to serve her
and a great compassion for her came over him. There was pity for
himself, too, in his thoughts, for he had schooled himself for so long
to believe that the woman he loved did not love him, and could never
love him, that no slightest idea that he was mistaken came to him now to
help lighten his sacrifice. As he realized all this he thought, not
without a pang, of the future and of the unknown possible happiness it
might hold for him and which he was renouncing forever. In the long days
to come, he had thought, he might be able to forget that greater
happiness denied him and be as contented as many another man, but even
that consolation he could now no longer look forward to.

"Do not distress yourself," he said again, quietly. "Be assured that I