ashamed of my ignorance and my mistakes. But if I were pure, if I had never been divorced, if I were standing here your faithful wife, would you be glad?"     

       "Hush! You are paining yourself and me."     

       "Jack!"     

       "For God's sake be still!"     

       She fell on her knees beside him.     

       "Jack, say you would be glad."     

       "If you had never left me, if you had remained my faithful wife, heaven knows that I should be a happier man!"     

       Bella burst into tears and sobbed convulsively, then pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. It was bright with blood when she withdrew it.     

       "Oh, be careful of yourself," said John Chetwynd, terribly moved;       "you must do what I advise."     

       "I'll try. I wonder why you should care one way or the other. It is more than I deserve—you make me so sorry and ashamed. I shall never see you any more, shall I?"     

       "I cannot."     

       "No; I understand, I ought not to ask you. Well, good-bye. There is my address if you should take a notion to come. It is only a six months' engagement over here, and if I'm not long for this wicked world, I may not live to finish it. Keep my card. If one day you should feel that you could come—just once. You don't hate me?"     

       "Hate you? No."     

       "I dare not ask you to forgive; but I begin to know and feel what my action towards you really meant. Jack, see I am on my knees. Forgive me!"     

       "I do. I forgive. If I was hard to you; if, as you say, I expected and exacted too much from you, may God forgive me."     

       The tears were still raining down Bella's cheeks.     

       "Kiss me, Jack."     

       He shrank back. "You must not ask me that. I cannot."     

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