"I am glad to see you," she said. "Your sister tells me you think of
going abroad."

"Has she told you why?" he asked eagerly.

Marion's face grew crimson. The beautiful eyes dropped from his. She
drew back ever so little, but another keen, sharp glance told him she
was not angry; only shy and timid.

"You are so good to me," he continued, with passionate eagerness, "that
I am not afraid to tell you. I must go; life here is torture to me; it
is torture to see you, to hear you speak, to worship you with a heart
full of fire, and yet to know that the sun is not farther from me than
you, to know that if I laid my life at your feet you would only laugh at
me and think me mad. It is torture so great that exile and death seem
preferable."

He saw her lips quiver, and her eyes, half raised, had in them no angry
light.

"You are a great lady," he said, "rich, noble, powerful. I am a poor
artist. I have but one gift--that is genius. And I have dared, fired by
such a beauty as woman never had before, to raise my eyes to you. They
are dazzled, blinded, and I must suffer for my rashness; and yet--"

He paused, gave another keen glance, felt perfectly satisfied that what
he was saying was well received, then went on:

"Artists before now have loved great ladies, and by their genius have