It was late when Irene came down to breakfast the next morning.

The breakfast bell had clanged noisily twice, and all the other inmates of the villa were in their places at the table, when Miss Berlin glided in, pale, mute, grave, and took her wonted seat by Mrs. Leslie's side.

Every eye turned curiously on the fair young face. The change was too marked to escape observation. The white cheeks, the dark shadows beneath the eyes, the pathetic droop of the red lips, all had a story of their own. The simple white morning-dress, with the black velvet ribbon at throat and waist was sad and suggestive too. All missed the bright bunch of flowers she was wont to wear on her breast, but none guessed that the simple black and white were mute tokens of bereavement.

"I was sorry to hear of your illness last night. I trust you are better this morning," said Mr. Stuart from his place as host.

His voice was grave and kind, but his eyes were kinder. They often lingered on her as if fascinated, until, with a sharp sigh of pain he would turn away.

"Thank you, I am better," she replied, briefly, and dropped the long lashes over her eyes because Julius Revington was trying to meet them across the table.

He was vexed with her for looking so pale, so wan, so unhappy.

"Am I an ogre that she should look so pale, so ill, so wretched, at the bare idea of having me for a husband?" he said to himself, in a passionate ebullition of wounded vanity.

When breakfast was over he managed to intercept her as she was going out.

"It is a beautiful morning, Miss Berlin. Will you walk out with me?" he asked, pleadingly.

She brought her broad-brimmed sun-hat from the rack in the hall and silently accompanied him.

It was a beautiful morning, as he had said. The sun shone brilliantly, the blue sky mirrored itself in the blue river, birds sang, flowers bloomed, and the air was sweet with the breath of roses. But for once Irene was indifferent to the sweet influences of nature. She walked along silently by his side, her blue eyes downcast, her face pale, her steps slow and languid.

They paused at last to rest on a pretty garden seat beside the murmuring river. Irene flung herself down wearily.

She, who seldom knew what weakness meant, could barely drag her weary limbs along.

"I am sorry to see you looking so ill to-day," murmured the lover.

She glanced up quickly in his face for some sign of relenting.

Alas, his passionate look of admiration dispelled the sudden, springing hope. Her heart sank heavily again.

"I am ill," she cried. "God only knows what I suffered last night. Are you still relentless in your cruel purpose?"

"You use hard words," he said, flinching under her scorn. "Is it cruel to love you, and wish you for my own?"

"It is cruel to try to force me into compliance with your wishes," she answered, with a passing flash of indignation.

"You mistake. I have not tried to force you. I merely gave you a choice of terms," he replied.

"Scylla and Charybdis," murmured the girl, disdainfully.

"As you will," he replied; but in his heart he said, cruelly: "You find it hard, fair lady, to tolerate a master in practice, however fine it may appear in theory."

She sat still, looking dreamily into the rushing river, a look of despair frozen on her white face.

"You may have guessed why I brought you here," he said.

She made him no answer. The cold despair deepened in the lovely, downcast eyes.

"I am impatient for my answer," he went on. "Are you going to be kind to your mother, Irene; kind to yourself, and merciful to me?"

She turned and looked at him, with the fire of scorn flashing all over her beautiful face.

"If you mean am I going to sacrifice myself for my mother's sake, I answer yes," she said. "Here is my hand. Take it. But it is empty—there is no heart in it. There never will be. I shall never love you, were I twenty times your wife. I shall always hate you for driving me to the wall, for making me untrue to myself."

Unheeding her wild words he took the hand and kissed it, but she tore it madly away. It rushed over her drearily how strange it was for Guy Kenmore's widowed bride to be thus plighting her hand to another almost in the first hour of her bereavement.