“Oh,” she breathed, painfully, and turned away from him.  When she was half way to the door, he called to her.  “Rose!  Dear Rose!”

She hesitated, her hand upon the knob.  “Close the door and come back,” he pleaded.  “Please—­oh, please!”

Trembling from head to foot, she obeyed him, but her face was pitiful.  She could not force herself to look at him.  “Forgive,” she murmured, “and forget.”

The hand he took in his was cold, but her nearness gave him comfort, as never before.  His heart was unspeakably tender toward her.

“Rose,” he went on, softly, “I’ve been too near the other world not to have the truth now.  Tell me what you mean!  Make me understand!”

She did not answer, nor even lift her eyes.  She breathed hard, as though she were in pain.

“Rose,” he said again, tightening his clasp upon the hand she tried to draw away, “did you mean that you would be my—­”

“In name,” she interrupted, throwing up her head proudly.  “Just to help you—­that was all.”

He drew her hand to his hot lips and kissed it twice.  “Oh, how divinely kind you are,” he whispered, “even to think of stooping to such as I!”

“Have pity,” she said brokenly, “and let me go.”

“Pity?” he repeated.  “In all the world there is none like yours.  To think of your being willing to sacrifice yourself, through pity of me!”

The blood came back into her heart by leaps and bounds.  She had not utterly betrayed herself, then, since he translated it thus.

“Listen,” he was saying.  “I cared—­terribly, but it’s gone, and my heart is empty.  It’s like an open grave, waiting for something that does not come.  Did you ever care?”

“Yes,” she answered, with eyes downcast.

“Did you care for someone who did not care for you?”

“Yes,” she replied, again.

“And he never knew?”

“No.”  The word was almost a whisper.

“He must have been a brute, not to have cared.  Was it long ago?”

“Not very.”

“Have I ever met him?”

The suggestion of an ironical smile hovered for a moment around her pale lips, then vanished.  “No.”

“I have no right to—­to ask his name.”

“No.  What difference does a name make?”

“None.  Could you never bring yourself to care for anyone else?”

“No,” she breathed.  “Oh, no!”

“And yet, with your heart as empty as mine you still have pity enough to—­”

“To serve you,” she answered.  Her eyes met his clearly now.  “To help you—­as your best friend might.”

“Rose, dear Rose!  You give me new courage, but how can I let you sacrifice yourself for me?” “Believe me,” she said diffidently, “there is no question of sacrifice.  Have you never thought of what you might do, that would be even better than the career you had planned?”

“Why, no.  What could I do, without—­”