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"Forgive me!" he said, in low uneven tones--"I--I did not mean it!"

She lifted her eyes to his, half proudly half appealingly

"You did not mean it?" she asked, quietly

An a its former sweetness--then she smiled coldly, turned away and left hiure disappearing by degrees, as she went up the ascending path fro for dancers not yet groeary And fro a kind of silence fell between them,--they were separated as by an ice-floe They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless, manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,--so much so that he worked himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both as a student of science and a woman of wealth And yet--and yet--he had aloaded hie and attainment were concerned she was more than his equal Irritated by his own quarrelsome set of sentiments which pulled hi possible for hireat divide" of distance between himself and her This he had done--and to what purpose? Apparently merely to excite her ridicule!--and to prick her hu out where he had fled and following him! And she--even she--who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment on the seashore,--had discovered hiht mockery--and actually said that "to kiss hi a bunch of nettles!"--SHE said that!--she who for one wildup frohts crowded thick and fast one on the other--why did he think of her at all! It was as if so force compelled him to do so Then--she had seen Manella, and had naturally drawn her own conclusions, based on the girl's rich beauty which was so tean to talk to hi up the thread of his broken converse where he had left it-"If it were Morgana it would be far worse than if it were Manella!" he said--"The one is too stupid--the other too clever But the stupid woman would make the best wife--if I wanted one--which I do not; and the best mother, if I desired children,--which I do not The question is,--what DO I want? I think I know--but supposing I get it, shall I be satisfied? Will it fulfil my life's desire? What IS my life's desire?"