Her lips were tremulous, but she was trying to be brave. “But surely, Maida, it cannot be that we are to part forever. Afterwards--” the word was vague, but they both understood--“afterwards I may see you. Such things often are. Because you feel yourself compelled to this step, there is no reason why I, of all others, should be shut out of your life.” “It is the fact of your being the one of all others that makes the shutting needful.” “It shall not be.” “Lenox,” she pleaded, “it is harder for me than for you.” “But how can you ask me, how can you think that I will give you up? The affair is wretched enough as it is, and now, by insisting that I am not to see you again, you would make it even worse. People think it easy to love, but it is not; I know nothing more difficult. You are the only one for whom I have ever cared. It was not difficult to do so, I admit, but the fact remains. I have loved you, I have loved you more and more every day, and now, when I love you most, when I love you as I can never love again, you find it the easiest matter in the world to come to me and say, ‘It’s ended; _bon jour_.’” “You are cruel, Lenox, you are cruel.” “It is you that are cruel, and there the wonder is, for your cruelty is unconscious, of your own free will you would not know how.” “It is not that I am cruel, it is that I am trying to do right. And it is for you to aid me. I have been true to you, do not ask me now to be false to myself.” If at that moment Mrs. Bunker Hill could have looked into the girl’s face, her suspicions would have vanished into air. Maida needed only a less fashionable gown to look like a mediæval saint; and before the honesty that was in her eyes Lenox bowed his head. “Will you help me?” “I will,” he answered. “I knew you would; you are too good to try to make me more miserable than I am. And now, you must go; kiss me, it is the last time.” He caught her in his arms and kissed her full upon the mouth. He kissed her wet eyes, her cheeks, the splendor of her hair. And after a moment of the acutest pain of all her life, the girl freed herself from his embrace, and let him go without another word. CHAPTER V. A YELLOW ENVELOPE. There is a peculiarity about Baden-Baden which no other watering-place seems to share--it has the aroma of a pretty woman. In August it is warm, crowded, enervating, tiresome as are all warm and crowded places, but the air is delicately freighted and a pervasive fragrance is discerned even by the indifferent.