“Mr. Cotterell!” he repeated with infinite sadness in manner, and with a look of much meaning in his bold blue eyes. “You call me Mr. Cotterell, then I am no longer Mr. Perseus, and my sweet romance is shattered forever!” “I know now that you are Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive, in keen distress. “And knowing that, you are disillusioned and have lost faith in me, and you will not even let me carry your pail of water for you,” said he, sadly, in a way which cut Olive to the heart, “yet I am the same man I was. To you at least I have never changed.” “I know you are very kind,” said Olive, “but if you please I’d rather you didn’t carry the pail for me.” She was dreadfully sorry to say anything to hurt his feelings, but she remembered her promise, and she must make him understand here and now that their acquaintance was to cease. She wanted to do it as kindly as she could, but she must do it at once. Cotterell was not slow to read her thoughts, indeed her distress was too real and undisguised for him to fail to understand. “Is this an order of dismissal, Mrs. Weston? Am I not to come to see you any more?” he asked abruptly, with a look of pain in his face. Olive glancing up saw the pain and felt sorrier than ever, but she went bravely forward. “I am deeply pained, Mr. Cotterell, but I must ask you not to come to see me; my husband does not want you to,” she said, unable in her distress to find any words which would convey her meaning unmistakably, and yet not sound too unkind. “Your husband has forbidden you to see me?” said Cotterell, biting his yellow moustache savagely. “Yes,” said Olive simply. “Your husband’s sentiments would do credit to a dog in the manger, Mrs. Weston, but are not what one exactly looks for from a professing communist, who poses as a shining light for his poor fellow-creatures still groping in the darkness of their ignorance.” “He says you are a bad man, Mr. Cotterell,” said Olive with a view to defending her husband and perhaps finding out the facts of the case about her mysterious friend, in whose personality she felt a great interest. “I don’t pretend to be a good man, Heaven knows! but I’m a poor lonely devil living quite by myself, and your husband, with all that the world can give in the way of happiness, grudges me the brief pleasure of talking for half an hour with a good woman. That’s not the way to make me a better man, Mrs. Weston, and God knows I need all the help I can get.” “I’m so sorry,” faltered Olive in ready sympathy, and the tears welled up into her tender black eyes. “You sweet pitying angel,” said Mr. Cotterell, coming nearer and speaking very gently. “Your influence would save me if anything could.” “Oh, you mustn’t talk like that,” said Olive, with a catch in her voice. “And you will be a good man, won’t you?” He bent his handsome face low, and taking her hand implanted a kiss upon it with a grace that might have charmed a duchess.