"I watched for you,--I have something to say to you,"--steadying her
voice.

"Not to-night," with a tenderness that startled one, coming from lips so
thin and critical. "You are not well. You have some hard pain there, and
you want to make it real. Let it sleep. You were watching for me. Let me
have just that silly thought to take with me. Look up, Theodora. I want
the hot color on your cheek again, and the look in your eye I saw there
once,--only once. Do you remember?"

"I remember,"--her face crimson, her eyes flashing with tears. "Douglas,
Douglas, never speak of that to me! I dare not think of it. Let me tell
you what I want to say. It will soon be over."

"I will not, Theodora," he said, coolly. "See now, child! You are not
your healthy self to-night. You have been too much alone. This solitude
down there in your heart is eating itself out in some morbid whim. I saw
it in your eye. Better it had forced itself into anger, as usual."

She did not speak. He took her hand and seated her beside him, talked to
her in the same careless, gentle way, watching her keenly.

"Did you ever know the meaning of your name? I think of it often,--_The
gift of God,--Theodora_. Surely, if there be such an all-embracing Good,
He has no more helpful gift than a woman such as you might be."

She looked up, smiling.

"Might be? That is not"----