reserved rights of that kind. I have no mortgage, in fact or sentiment, on
any part of the earth's surface, that I'm acquainted with!"

He spoke with a hard carelessness in his manner which make her shrink.

"I mean the East. I am homeless, too, but all the East seems like home to
me."

"You had better get rid of those sentimental, backward fancies as soon as
possible. The East concerns itself very little about us, I can tell you! It
can spare us."

She thrilled with pain at his words. "I should think you would be the last
one to say so,--you, who have so much treasure there."

"Will you please to understand," he said, turning upon her a face of bitter
calmness, "that I claim no treasure anywhere,--not even in heaven!"

She sat perfectly still, conscious that by some fatality of helpless
incomprehension every word that she said goaded him, and she feared to
speak again.

"Now I have hurt you," he said in his gentlest voice. "I am always hurting
you. I oughtn't to come near you with my rough edges! I'll go away now, if
you will tell me that you forgive me!"

She smiled at him without speaking, while her fair throat trembled with a
pulse of pain.

"Will you let me take your hand a moment? It is so long since I have