"I believe you," he interrupts her hastily. He can hardly do otherwise, she is looking so little, so fragile, with her quivering lips, and her childish pleading eyes, and plaintive voice. "Take courage," he says, softly: "you are young: good days may yet be in store for you; but with me it is different. I am on the verge of the grave,--am going down into it with no one to soothe or comfort my declining years. Dorian was my one thought: you can never know how I planned, and lived, and dreamed for him alone; and see how he has rewarded me! For youth there is a future, and in that thought alone lies hope; for age there is nothing but the flying present, and even that, for me, has lost its sweetness. I have staked my all, and--lost! surely, of we two, I should be the most miserable." "Is that your belief?" says Mrs. Branscombe, mournfully. "Forgive me if I say I think you wrong. You have but a little time to endure your grief, I have my life, and perhaps"--pathetically--"it will be a long one. To know I must live under his roof, and feel myself indebted to him for everything I may want, for many years, is very bitter to me." Sartoris is cut to the heart: that it should have gone so far that she should shrink from accepting anything at Dorian's hands, galls him sorely. And what a gentle tender boy he used to be, and how incapable of a dishonest thought or action! At least, something should be done for his wife,--this girl who has grown tired and saddened and out of all heart since her luckless marriage. He looks at her again keenly, and tells himself she is sweet enough to keep any man at her side, so dainty she shows in her simple linen gown, with its soft Quakerish frillings at the throat and wrists. A sudden thought at last strikes him. "I am glad I have met you," he says, quietly. "By and by, perhaps, we shall learn to be good friends. In the mean time will you do me a small favor? will you come up to Hythe on Thursday at one o'clock?" "If you want me to come," says Georgie, betraying through her eyes the intense surprise she feels at this request. "Thank you. And will you give Dorian a written message from me?" "I will," she says again. And tearing a leaf from his pocket-book, he writes, as follows: "When last we parted, it was with the expressed determination on your part never again to enter my doors until such time as I should send for you. I do so now, and beg you will come up to Hythe on Thursday next at half-past one o'clock. I should not trouble you so far, but that business demands your presence. I give you my word not to detain you longer than is absolutely necessary." Folding up this note, he gives it to her, and pressing her hand warmly, parts from her, and goes back again to Hythe.