Lothrop Audouin walked round a little tremblingly to the Villa Panormi. He wasn\'t generally a shy or nervous man, but on this particular afternoon he felt an unwonted agitation in his breast, for he was bound to the Villa on a very special errand; and he was glad when he saw Gwen Howard-Russell walking about alone in the alleys of the garden, for it saved him the necessity of having to make a formal call upon her in the big salon. Gwen saw him coming, and moved towards the heavy iron gate to meet him.

She gave him her hand with one of her sunniest smiles, and Audouin took it, as he always did, with antique Massachusetts ceremoniousness. Then he turned with her, almost by accident as it were, down the path bordered by the orange-trees, and began to talk as he loved so well to talk, about the trees, and the flowers, and the green-grey lizards, that sat sunning themselves lazily upon the red Roman tiles which formed the stiff and formal garden edging.

\'Though these are not my own flowers, you know, Miss Russell,\' he said at last, looking at her a little curiously. \'These are not my own flowers; and indeed everything here in Rome, even nature itself, always seems to me so overlaid by the all-pervading influence of art that I fail to feel at home with the very lilies and violets in this artificial atmosphere In America, you know, my surroundings are so absolutely those of unmixed nature: I lead the life of a perfect hermit in an unsophisticated and undesecrated wilderness.\'

\'Mr. Winthrop has told me a great deal about Lakeside,\' Gwen answered lightly, and Audouin took it as a good omen that she should have remembered the very name of his woodland cottage. \'You live quite among the prim?val forest, don\'t you, by a big shallow bend in Lake Ontario?\'

\'Yes, quite among the prim?val forest indeed; from my study window I look out upon nothing but the green pines, and the rocky ravine, and the great blue sheet of Ontario for an infinite background. Not a house or a sign of life to be seen anywhere, except the flying-squirrels darting about among the branches of the hickories.\'

\'But don\'t you get very tired and lonely there, with nobody but yourself and your servants? Don\'t you feel dreadfully the want of congenial cultivated society?\'

Audouin sighed pensively to hide the beating of his heart at that simple question.

Surely, surely, the beautiful queenly Englishwoman was leading up to his hand! Surely she must know what was the natural interpretation for him to put upon her last inquiry! It is gross presumptuousness on the part of any man to ask a woman for the priceless gift of her whole future unless you have good reason to think that you are not wholly without hope of a favourable answer; but Gwen Howard-Russell must certainly mean to encourage him in the bold plunge he was on the verge of taking. It is hard for a chivalrous man to ask a woman that supreme question at any time: harder still when, like Lothrop Audouin, he has left it till time has begun to sprinkle his locks with silver. But Gwen was evidently not wholly averse to his proposition: he would break the ice between them and venture at last upon a declaration.

\'Well,\' he answered slowly, looking at Gwen half askance in a timid fashion very unlike his usual easy airy gallantry, \'I usen\'t to think it so, Miss Howard; I usen\'t to think it so. I had my books and my good companions—Plato, and Montaigne, and Burton, and Rabelais. I loved the woods and the flowers and the living creatures, and all my life long, you know, I have been a fool to nature, a fool to nature. Perhaps there was a little spice of misanthropy, too, in my desire to fly from a base, degrading, materialised civilisation. I didn\'t feel lonely in those days;—no, in those days, in those days, Miss Russell, I didn\'t feel lonely.\'

He spoke hesitatingly, with long pauses between each little sentence, and his lips quivered as he spoke with girlish tremulousness and suppressed emotion. He who was usually so fluent and so ready with his rounded periods—he hardly managed now to frame his tongue to the few short words he wished to say to her. Profoundly and tenderly respectful by nature to all women, he felt so deeply awed by Gwen\'s presence and by the magnitude of the favour he wished to ask of her, that he trembled like a child as he tried to speak out boldly his heart\'s desire. It was not nervousness, it was not timidity, it was not diffidence; it was the overpowering emotion of a mature man, pent up till now, and breaking over him at last in a perfect inundation through the late-opened floodgates of his repressed passion. For a moment he leaned his hand against the projecting rockery of the grotto for support; then he spoke once more in a hushed voice, so that even Gwen vaguely suspected the real nature of his coming declaration.

\'In those days,\' he repeated once more, with knees failing under him for trembling, \'in those days I didn\'t feel lonely; but since my last visit to Rome I have felt Lakeside much more solitary than before. I have tired of my old crony Nature, and have begun to feel a newborn desire for closer human companionship. I have begun to wish for the presence of some kind and beautiful friend to share its pleasures with me. I needn\'t tell you, Miss Russell, why I date the uprising of that feeling from the time of my last visit to Italy. It was then that I first learned really to know and to admire you. It is a great thing to ask, I know, a woman\'s heart—a true noble woman\'s whole heart and affection; but I dare to beg for it—I dare to beg for it. Oh, Miss Russell—oh, Gwen, Gwen, will you have pity upon me? will you give it me? will you give it me?\' As he spoke, the tall strong-knit man, clutching the rock-work passionately for support, he looked so pale and faint and agitated that Gwen thought he would have fallen there and then, if she gave him the only possible answer too rudely and suddenly.

So she took his arm gently in hers, as a daughter might take a father\'s, and led him to the seat at the far end of the orange alley by the artificial fountain. Audouin followed her with a beating heart, and threw himself down half fainting on the slab of marble.

\'Mr. Audouin,\' Gwen began gently, for she pitied his evident overpowering emotion from the bottom of her heart, \'I can\'t tell you how sorry I am to have to say so, but it cannot possibly be; it can never be, never, so it\'s no use my trying to talk about it.\'

A knife struck through Audouin\'s bosom at those simple words, and he grew still paler white than ever, but he merely bowed his head respectfully, and, crushing down his love with iron resolution, murmured slowly, \'Then forgive me, forgive me.\' His unwritten creed would not have permitted him in such circumstances to press his broken suit one moment longer.

\'Mr. Audouin,\' Gwen went on, \'I\'m afraid I have unintentionally misled you. No, I don\'t want you to go yet,\' she added with one of her imperious gestures, for he seemed as if he would rise and leave her; \'I don\'t want you to go until I have explained it all to you. I like you very much, I have always liked you; I respect you, too, and I\'ve been pleased and proud of the privilege of your acquaintance. Perhaps in doing so much, in seeking to talk with you and enjoy your society, I may have seemed to have encouraged you in feelings which it never struck me you were at all likely to harbour. I—I liked you so sincerely that I never even dreamt you might fancy I could love you.\' \'And why, Miss Russell?\' Audouin pleaded earnestly. \'If you dismiss me so hopelessly, let me know at least the reason of my dismissal. It was very presumptuous of me, I know, to dare to hope for so much happiness; but why did you think me quite outside the sphere of your possible suitors?\'

\'Why, Mr. Audouin,\' Gwen said in a low tone, \'I have always looked upon you rather as one might look upon a father than as one might look upon a young man of one\'s own generation. I never even thought of you before to-day except as somebody so much older and wiser, and altogether different from myself, that it didn\'t occur to me for a single moment you yourself wouldn\'t feel so also.\' Audouin\'s despairing face brightened a little as he said, \'If that is all, Miss Russell, mayn\'t I venture to look upon your answer as not quite final; mayn\'t I hope to leave the question open yet a little, so that you may see what time may do for me, now you know my inmost feeling? Don\'t crush me hopelessly at once; let me linger a little before you utterly reject me. If you only knew how deeply you have entwined yourself into my very being, you wouldn\'t cast me off so lightly and so easily.\'

Gwen looked at him with a face full of unfeigned pity. \'Mr. Audouin,\' she answered, \'I know how truly you are speaking. I should read your nature badly if I didn\'t see it in your very eyes. But I cannot hold you out any hope in any way. I like you immensely; I feel profoundly sorry to have to speak so plainly to you. I know how great an honour you confer upon me by your offer; but I can\'t accept it—it\'s quite impossible that I can ever accept it. I like you, and respect you more than I ever liked or respected any other person, except one; but there is one person I like and respect even more, so you see at once why it\'s quite impossible that I should listen to you about this any longer.\'

\'I understand,\' Audouin answered slowly. \'I understand. I see it all now. Colin Churchill has been beforehand with me. While I hesitated, he has acted.\'

Gwen\'s lips broke for a moment into a quiet smile, and she murmured softly, \'No, not Colin Churchill, Mr. Audouin, not Colin Churchill, but Hiram Winthrop. I think, as I have said so much, I ought to tell you it is Hiram Winthrop.\'

Audouin\'s brain reeled round madly in grief and indignation at that astonishing revelation. Hiram Winthrop! His own familiar friend; his dearest ward and pupil! Was it he, then, who had stolen this prize of life, unseen, unsuspected, beneath his very eyesight? If Gwen had never fancied that Audouin could fall in love with her, neither could Audouin ever have suspected it of Hiram Winthrop. If Gwen had looked upon Audouin as a confirmed old bachelor of the elder generation, Audouin had looked upon Hiram as a mere boy, too young yet to meddle with such serious fancies. And now the boy had stolen Gwen from him unawares, and for half a second, all loyal as he was, Audouin felt sick and angry in soul at what he figured to himself as Hiram\'s cruel and ungrateful duplicity.

\'Hiram Winthrop!\' he muttered angrily. \'Hiram Winthrop! How unworthy of him! how unkind of him! how unjust of him to come between me and the one object he ever knew me set my heart upon!\'

\'But, Mr. Audouin,\' Gwen cried in warmer tones, \'Hiram no more dreamt of this than I did; he took it for grant............