“She is safe and well, Dorothy; I swear it on my soul. True, she suffers, but it is better she should suffer now and find joy afterward than to see you suffer for a lifetime. You would not listen to me when I told you the man you were to marry was a scoundrel. There was but one way to save you from him and from yourself; there was but one way to save you for myself, and I took it. I could not and would not give you up to that villain. I love you, Dorothy; you cannot doubt that, even though you hate me for proving it to you. Everything have I dared, to save you and to win you--to make you gladly say some day that you love me.” Her eyes blazed with scorn. “Love you? After what you have done? Oh, that I could find words to tell you how I hate you!” She stopped in front of him, her white face and gleaming eyes almost on a level with his, and he could not but quail before the bitter loathing that revealed itself so plainly. Involuntarily his hand went forth in supplication, and the look in his eyes came straight from the depths into which despair had cast him. If she saw the pain in his face her outraged sensibilities refused to recognize it. “Dorothy, you--you--” he began, but pulled himself together quickly “I did not come in the hope of making you look at things through my eyes. It is my mission to acknowledge as true, all that Lady Saxondale has told you concerning my culpability. I alone am guilty of wrong, and I am accountable. If we are found out, I have planned carefully to protect my friends. Yet a great deal rests with you. When the law comes to drag me from this place, its officers will find me alone, with you here as my accuser. My friends will have escaped. They are your friends as well as mine. You will do them thejustice of accusing but me, for I alone am the criminal.” “You assume a great deal when you dictate what I am to do and to say, if I have the opportunity. They are as guilty as you, and without an incentive. Do you imagine that I shall shield them? I have no more love for them than I have for you; not half the respect, for you, at least, have been consistent. Will you answer one question?” “Certainly.” “How long do you purpose to keep me in this place?” “Until you, of your own free will, can utter three simple words.” “And those words?” “I love you.” “Then,” she said, slowly, decisively, “I am doomed to remain here until death releases me.” “Yes; the death of ambition.” She turned from him with a bitter laugh, seating herself in a chair near the window. Looking up into his face, she said, with maddening submission: “I presume your daily visits are to be a part of the torture I am to endure?”