He drew her hand within his arm and guided her. As he did so he saw that she was crying; no doubt, as he rightly guessed, from shaken nerves and wounded pride; for it did not seem to him that she had yielded at all. But this time he felt distress and compunction. "Forgive me!" he said, bending over her. "But think of what I have said--I beg of you! Be kind, be merciful!" She made various attempts to speak, and at last she said, "I bear you no malice. But you don't understand me, you never have." He offered no reply. They had reached the courtyard of the hotel. Daphne withdrew her hand. When she reached the steps she preceded him without looking back, and was soon lost to sight. Boyson shook his head, lit a cigar, and spent some time longer pacing up and down the veranda. When he went to his wife's room he found her asleep, a vision of soft youth and charm. He stood a few moments looking down upon her, wondering in himself at what he had done. Yet he knew very well that it was the stirring and deepening of his whole being produced by love that had impelled him to do it. Next morning he told his wife. "Do you suppose I produced _any_ effect?" he asked her anxiously. "If she really thinks over what I said, she _must_ be touched! unless she's made of flint. I said all the wrong things--but I _did_ rub it in." "I'm sure you did," said his wife, smiling. Then she looked at him with a critical tenderness. "You dear optimist!" she cried, and slipped her hand into his. "That means you think I behaved like a fool, and that my appeal won't move her in the least?" The face beside him saddened. "Dear, dear optimist!" she repeated, and pressed his hand. He urged an explanation of her epithet. But she only said, thoughtfully: "You took a great responsibility!" "Towards her?" She shook her head. "No--towards him!" Meanwhile Daphne was watching beside a death-bed. On her return from her walk she had been met by the news of fresh and grave symptoms in Mrs. Verrier's case. A Boston doctor arrived the following morning. The mortal disease which had attacked her about a year before this date had entered, so he reported, on its last phase. He talked of a few days--possibly hours. The Boysons departed, having left cards of inquiry and sympathy, of which Mrs. Floyd took no notice. Then for Daphne there followed a nightmare of waiting and pain. She loved Madeleine Verrier, as far as she was capable of love, and she jealously wished to be all in all to her in these last hours. She would have liked to feel that it was she who had carried her friend through them; who had nobly sustained her in the dolorous past. To have been able to feel this would have been as balm moreover to a piteously wounded self-love, to a smarting and bitter recollection, which would not let her rest.