When she spoke it was to say: "I recognize your kindness and the impulse which led to this offer.

But I do not wish to add so much as a feather's weight to your difficulties.
Let matters remain as they are till after----" He took a quick step toward her.
"Not if my heart is full of regret ?" he cried.

"Not if I recognize in you now the one influence left in this world which can help me bear the burden of my own past and the threatening collapse of my whole future ?" "No," she replied, with an access of emotion of so elevated a type it added to rather than detracted from her dignity.

"It is too much or it is not enough." His head drooped and he fell back, throwing a glance to right and left at the two officials who had drawn up on either side of him.

It was an expressive glance; it was as if he said, "You see! she knows as well as you for whom the arrow was intended--yet she is kind." But in an instant later he was before her again, with an aspect so changed that they all marveled.
"I had hoped," he began, then stopped.