"Kathleen, what have I done that you will not even speak to me?" he asked, piteously, and all her heart thrilled at the words; her will was hardly strong enough to restrain her from springing into his arms. His glance, deep, reproachful, loving, and magnetic, all in one, held her like a charm: "It shot down her soul's deep heaven Like a meteor trailing fire." A long, long, troubled sigh breathed over the girl's sweet lips, and with a great effort of her will she drooped her eyelids so that they could not encounter his gaze. "For I dare not, or--I should _risk_ everything for his dear love," she thought, wildly. She mystified him so by her strange behavior that he forgot his pride, and again advanced toward her side. "Kathleen, my love, my darling, speak to me, if only one word!" he cried, yearningly, passionately. And finding her voice at last, she faltered to him, in a despairing tone: "Did you ever--ever--know--a woman named--Fedora?" "My God!" cried Ralph Chainey. He flung up one hand to his brow and reeled backward from her side like one wounded to the death. "So it is true?" Kathleen cried, in a hollow voice full of bitter anguish. Ralph Chainey looked at her with sad eyes from which all the brightness had strangely faded. "Who has told you?" he asked, in a dull voice. "She told me herself," Kathleen answered, and shot him an indignant glance, pride coming to her rescue. There could no longer be any doubt of his guilt. His looks confessed it. But he faltered in a dazed voice: "That is impossible! She is dead!" "You can not deceive me like that, Ralph Chainey!" cried Kathleen, in tempestuous anger. Her eyes flashed lightning on her recreant lover, and she continued, bitterly: "Your wife came to me that night in the station and told me all. She--she took me away." "What was she like?" demanded the young man, hoarsely. He seemed dazed by sudden misery. "She was a beautiful blonde with a haughty manner," answered Kathleen; and he groaned as if there could be no longer any hope. "I have been duped, deceived! I believed that Fedora was dead long ago," he said, angrily. Then his voice grew softer. "Kathleen, will you let me explain it all?" he pleaded, humbly. But in the heart of the beautiful, passionate young girl there had suddenly leaped into life the devouring flame of jealousy--jealousy and hate for the woman who had thrust her rival into the pit of a black despair. And he had deceived her. It seemed to her she must go mad with her wrongs. In this moment she hated her lover. She turned on him with a tigerish glare in her splendid eyes. "I will hear nothing!" she said, bitterly. "You will never have the chance to deceive me again!" and she rushed angrily from the room. CHAPTER XXXIII. RALPH CHAINEY'S ANGER. I can not break the cruel net, And yet-- My eyes with scornful tears are wet-- Release me, teach me to forget. CELIA THAXTER.