"I am leaving town next week, and I have something important to say to you before I go.

You will allow me to say it privately ?" She smiled assent, and leaned on his arm with a light, confiding pressure, to which he no more responded than if his muscles had been rigid iron.

Her heart beat quickly with a sense of gratified vanity and exultant expectancy,--but his throbbed slowly and heavily, chilled by the double frost of age and solitude..