Seeing that he was moved by nothing she had said, she suddenly paused, and presently I heard her observe in quite a different tone: "There is one thing you must know--which I thought you would know without my telling you.

I have never lived with this man, and I believed him dead when I gave my hand to you." The mayor's fingers twitched.

She had touched him at last.

"Speak! tell me," he murmured hoarsely.

"I do not want to do you any injustice." "I shall have to begin far, far back; tell about my early life and all its temptations," she faltered, "or you will never understand." "Speak." Sensible at this point of the extreme impropriety of my presence, I rose, with an apology, to leave.