"I agree," he repeated mechanically--"I agree--with you that it is better not." Then he looked suspiciously around the room. There was no one there--but a door opened into another room beyond. Jane followed his eyes. "That is Miss De Montague's room," she said; "we are always next to each other." "And she is there now?" "Yes--with Mr. Bellario--he is calling on her." Harding paused a minute, and then went on in a hard, constrained voice, like one who repeats a disagreeable lesson. "I have thought it right to see you--now, for the last time--and say I think it best--and right--that we should part." Jane turned very pale, and the old grave look of hopeless pain came over her face. But she answered with infinite softness and humility: "It is right--you know I thought so from the first. You should not marry a--a convict's daughter." "It is not because you are a convict's daughter." "The reason is sufficient." "I repel it," he cried vehemently--"I will have none of it--I told you so before--I repeat it now. Listen," and he crossed the room swiftly and closed both doors. "I loved you for yourself--dearly--dearly. What did it matter to me--what fault was it of yours--what other people did, or what or where they were? In this grand, new country, men--some men, at least--have grown high enough and strong enough to shake off such paltry prejudices as those. To me they are as nothing." "You led me to think so," Jane said gently. "Why should I care for your being a ballet-dancer--or for the other thing, when you had never disgraced yourself? But now it is different." "Now it is different!" she echoed in amazement. "Different in this," pursued he with growing excitement, "that before you were a pure girl--pure as snow--everybody said that--and now you are--are--compromised." The blood rushed in a torrent up to her hair. "Who says it?" she demanded, now first showing warmth--"who dares say it?" "Alas, Jane," he replied, "don't make things worse by deception at parting. Let us be at least as we have always been, honest and unreserved to each other." "What you have said just now," said the girl' proudly, "is an insult. The time has been when you would not have heard another say such words--either to me or of me; and yet they are as little deserved now as they have ever been." "They are, are they?" he retorted. "Then pray tell me who was that man you have had here within an hour?" She turned deadly white, and opened her lips thrice to speak before the words would shape themselves. "That--man?" "Do you deny having a man with you?" She shook her head piteously. "No--there was a man here--and with me." "Ah, you confess it then," cried he, as if her admission made what he knew more heinous. "Who was this man? Confess all!" "He--he--wanted help--asked for money. He saw me in the play at Boone's Bar--and thinking me richer than I am, asked me for money." Harding laughed scornfully. "And do you expect me to believe this?"