“I am crazy! crazy! I told you I was crazy! And if you do not leave me alone I shall go raving mad!” she wildly exclaimed, and then pushed her head down in the cushions again, as if she would shut out all sight of earth and heaven. David Lindsay sank back in his seat and turned deadly pale as he asked himself the question: What had he done to offend and alienate her? To fill her mind with such abhorrence of himself? He had obeyed her in everything. He had consecrated his life to her happiness. True, she was a rich heiress, and he was but a poor boy; yet, if their cases had been reversed, and he had been the wealthy man and she the poor girl, he felt that he would equally have consecrated his life to her. He loved her with his whole being, and since she had condescended to him, he had hoped finally to become more worthy of her, and to win her love; for deep down in his soul he felt the prophecy that he should become worthy of her— “Worthy as a king.” But ever since, at the priest’s command, he had offered her the bridegroom’s kiss, she had shrunk from him in loathing. Was it possible after all, that the mind of his beloved was unbalanced? That her reason was deranged, and had been so at the time she had made her strange marriage proposal to him? Had he himself been culpably hasty, even criminally reckless, in his acceptance of her offered hand? Had he unconsciously taken advantage of a poor child’s lunacy to make her his wife? Indeed, the present aspect of affairs looked as if this must be the case. And if so, what earthly amends could he make her? How atone for the deep wrong he had done her? These were terrible questions, that he could in no way answer. While they still tortured his soul, the carriage drew up before the hotel, and the coachman left his seat on the box and came down and opened the door. Gloria’s face was still tucked down out of sight in the corner of the carriage. “Come, lady, we have arrived,” the young bridegroom whispered, in a gentle and deprecating tone. She pulled her veil down closer over her face, doubling it so that not a feature could be seen, and then allowed him to take her hand and assist her from the carriage. David Lindsay, in his distress, forgot to pay the hackman and discharge the hack. But that functionary jogged the memory of his employer and received his own dues. Then young Lindsay led his companion into the house and up to the ladies’ parlor, when she left his arm and hurried away by herself to a corner, where she sat down in a large chair and hid her head in its back cushions. Meanwhile David Lindsay went down stairs and registered their names and engaged rooms. When this was done he came back to the parlor, accompanied by a waiter with a couple of keys in his hand. Leaving this man at the door, laden with the two traveling-bags which had been pointed out, David Lindsay approached Gloria and whispered: