would gather herself up like a princess on trial for treason, remanded to prison,—and she would march to your door. Once she’s within it, it’s your own affair. That’s what I can do. Now what can you do? Come, something handsome!” Fenton spoke loud and fast, as if to outstrip self-contempt. Roger listened amazedly to this tissue of falsity, impudence, and greed, and at last, as Fenton paused, and he seemed to see Nora’s very image turning away with a shudder, his disgust broke forth. “Upon my word, sir,” he cried, “you go too far; you ask too much. Nora in love with you,—you, who haven’t the grace even to lie decently! Tell me she’s ill, she’s lost, she’s dead; but don’t tell me she can look at you without horror!” Fenton rose and stood for a moment, glaring with anger at his useless self-exposure. For an instant, Roger expected a tussle. But Fenton deemed that he could deal harder vengeance than by his fists. “Very good!” he cried. “You have chosen. I don’t mind your words; you’re an ass at best, and of course you are twenty times an ass when you are put out by a disagreeable truth. But you are not such a fool, I guess, as not to repent!” And Fenton made a rather braver exit than you might have expected. Roger’s recent vigil with Mrs. Keith had been dismal enough; but he was yet to learn that a sleepless night may contain deeper possibilities of suffering. He had flung back Fenton’s words, but they returned to the charge. When once the gate is opened to self-torture, the whole army of fiends files in. Before morning he had fairly out-Fentoned Fenton. There was no discretion in his own love; why should there be in Nora’s? We love as we must, not as we should; and she, poor girl, might have bowed to the common law. In the morning he slept awhile for weariness, but he awoke to a world of agitation. If Fenton’s tale was true, and if, at Mrs. Keith’s instigation, his own suspicions had done Hubert wrong, he would go to Hubert, pour out his woes, and demand aid and comfort. He must move to find rest. Hubert’s lodging was far up town; Roger started on foot. The weather was perfect; one of those happy days of February which seem to snatch a mood from May,—a day when any sorrow is twice a sorrow. The winter was melting and trickling; you heard on all sides, in the still sunshine, the raising of windows; on the edges of opposing house-tops rested a vault of vernal blue. Where was she hidden, in the vast bright city? The streets and crowds and houses that concealed her seemed hideous. He would have beggared himself for the sound of her voice, though her words might damn him. When at last he reached Hubert’s dwelling, a sudden sense of all that he risked checked his steps. Hubert, after all, and Hubert alone, was a possible rival, and it would be sad work to put the torch into his hands! So he turned heavily back to the Fifth Avenue and kept his way to the Park. Here, for some time he walked about, heeding,