contempt than in another woman's praise, and feel myself transported
into the delights of that irrecoverable past, now grown the sweetest,
saddest memory of my life? Send me away, Pauline, before the old charm
asserts its power, and I forget that I am not the happy lover of a year
ago."

"Leave me then, Gilbert. Good night."

Half unconsciously, the former softness stole into her voice as it
lingered on his name. The familiar gesture accompanied the words, the
old charm did assert itself, and for an instant changed the cold woman
into the ardent girl again. Gilbert did not go but, with a hasty glance
down the deserted hall behind him, captured and kissed the hand he had
lost, passionately whispering, "Pauline, I love you still, and that look
assures me that you have forgiven, forgotten, and kept a place for me in
that deep heart of yours. It is too late to deny it. I have seen the
tender eyes again, and the sight has made me the proudest, happiest man
that walks the world tonight, slave though I am."

Over cheek and forehead rushed the treacherous blood as the violet eyes
filled and fell before his own, and in the glow of mingled pain and fear
that stirred her blood, Pauline, for the first time, owned the peril of
the task she had set herself, saw the dangerous power she possessed, and
felt the buried passion faintly moving in its grave. Indignant at her
own weakness, she took refuge in the memory of her wrong, controlled the
rebel color, steeled the front she showed him, and with feminine skill
mutely conveyed the rebuke she would not trust herself to utter, by
stripping the glove from the hand he had touched and dropping it
disdainfully as if unworthy of its place. Gilbert had not looked for
such an answer, and while it baffled him it excited his man's spirit to