She wrote a hasty note, and sealing it, asked him to have it sent at once. To his surprise he found it was addressed to Dallas. "I will give it to the janitor as we go down," he said. "Do you feel able to go now, Christine? A carriage will be waiting for us and I will take you to that dear woman who will make you feel as if your mother's arms were around you." Christine was trembling in every limb, but she reached for her bonnet and tried to tie it on. Her hands shook so that she let it fall. Noel picked it up and held it a moment, saying soothingly: "Don't hurry. We can wait a little while, if you wish. Try not to be too despairing. When you drive away from here to-day you leave the past behind you, and enter into a new and different life. Your new friend, Mrs. Murray, will know you only as you are now, and you may meet no one unless you wish to. She has very few friends herself, and she will tell them what she chooses of you. You will see she is not a woman that people will dare to ask questions of." He stopped. A look so dreary, strange and full of anguish had come into Christine's face that he was alarmed and said quickly: "What is it?" She struck her hands together and uttered a low cry. "What is my name?" she said, in a tone so wild and vacant he thought her mind was wandering. "It used to be," she said, passing one hand across her forehead, as if in an effort of memory--"it used to be Verrone--Christine Verrone, but I am not that happy-hearted girl the nuns used to call by that name. This is not Christine Verrone. The very flesh and blood and bones of this body are different--and surely in this mind and heart and soul there is no tinge nor remnant of that old Christine. How, then, can I be she? Oh! I have no home, no country, no dwelling-place on earth; I have not even a name to be called by!" Noel could bear no more. Taking her hands in his, he held them firmly, and looking in her eyes, said fervently: "Then take my name, Christine. Let me give you a home and friends, and call you by the name I bear. God knows I would feel honored in bestowing it upon you. If you will commit your precious life into my keeping--if you will marry me--" The look of her eyes checked him. The meaning of his words had dawned upon her slowly, and to his infinite distress he saw that they filled her with pain. "You are speaking out of pity for me. You think I would die beneath it, unless you sacrificed yourself and gave me the protection of your name," she said, speaking almost eagerly. "Tell me this is so. But you do not know how I feel. I can bear it somehow, or else I can die. I could never accept such a sacrifice from you, and, oh, I could never think of marriage again, even to the best and noblest creature on God's earth, without a shrinking that is pain intolerable."