“Exactly! You see how that complicates matters. Poor, dear little Nora!” And Fenton gave a twist to his mustache. “Imagine, if you can, how a man placed as I am feels toward a woman,—toward _the_ woman! If he reciprocates, it’s love, it’s passion, it’s what you will, but it’s common enough! But when he doesn’t repay her in kind, when he can’t, poor devil, it’s—it’s—upon my word,” cried Fenton, slapping his knee, “it’s chivalry!” For some moments Roger failed to appreciate the remarkable purport of these observations; then, suddenly, it dawned upon him. “Do I understand you,” he asked, in a voice gentle by force of wonder, “that you are the man?” Fenton squared himself in his chair. “You have hit it, sir. I am the man,—the happy, the unhappy man. D—n it, sir, it’s not my fault!” Roger stood staring; Fenton felt his eyes penetrating him to the core. “Excuse me,” said Roger, at last, “if I suggest your giving me some slight evidence in support of this extraordinary claim!” “Evidence? isn’t there about evidence enough? When a young girl gives up home and friends and fortune and—and reputation, and rushes out into the world to throw herself into a man’s arms, it seems to me you have got your evidence. But if you’ll not take my word, you may leave it! I may look at the matter once too often, let me tell you! I admire Nora with all my heart; I worship the ground she treads on; but I confess I’m afraid of her; she’s too good for me; she was meant for a finer gentleman than I! By which I don’t mean you, of necessity. But you have been good to her, and you have a claim. It has been cancelled in a measure; but you wish to set it up again. Now you see that I stand in your way; that if I had a mind to, I might stand there forever! Hang it, sir, I am playing the part of a saint. I have but a word to say to settle my case, and to settle yours. But I have my eye on a lady neither so young nor so pretty as my cousin, yet whom I can marry with a better conscience, for she expects no more than I can give her. Nevertheless, I don’t answer for myself. A man isn’t a saint every day in the week. Talk about conscience when a beautiful girl sits gazing at you through a mist of tears! O, you have yourself to thank for it all! A year and a half ago, if you hadn’t treated me like a swindler, Nora would have been content to treat me like a friend. But women have a fancy for an outlaw. You turned me out of doors, and Nora’s heart went with me. It has followed me ever since. Here I sit with my ugly face and hold it in my hand. As I say, I don’t quite know what to do with it. You propose an arrangement, I inquire your terms. A man loved is a man listened to. If I were to say to Nora to-morrow, ‘My dear girl, you have made a mistake. You are in a false position. Go back to Mr. Lawrence directly, and then we will talk about it!’ she would look at me a moment with those beautiful eyes of hers, she would sigh, she