His Hour

And, horribly distressed, Jack did what she wished, running against

Gritzko in the passage as he went out; but they had met before that

day, so he did not stop, but, nodding in his friendly way, passed down

the stairs.

Tamara sat where he had left her, the tears still trickling over her

cheeks, while she stared into the fire. The vision she saw there of her

future did not console her.

To be married to a man whom she knew she would daily grow to love

more--every moment of her time conscious that the tie was one of

sufferance, her pride and self respect in the dust--it was a miserable

picture.

Gritzko came in so quietly through the anteroom that, lost in her

troubled thoughts, she did not hear him until he was quite close. She

gave a little startled exclamation and then looked at him defiantly--

she was angry that he saw her tears.

His face went white and his voice grew hoarse with overmastering

emotion.

"What has happened between you and your friend, Madame? Tell me the

truth. No man should see you cry! Tell me everything, or I will kill

him."

And he stood there his eyes blazing.

Then Tamara rose and drew herself to her full height, while a flash of

her vanished pride returned to her mien, and with great haughtiness she

answered in a cold voice: "I beg you to understand one thing, Prince, I will not be insulted by

suspicions and threats against my friends. Lord Courtray and I have

been brought up as brother and sister. We spoke of my home, which I may

never see again, and I told him what he was to say to them there when

they asked about me. If I have cried I am ashamed of my tears, and when

you speak and act as you have just done, it makes me ashamed of the

feeling which caused them."

He took a step nearer, he admired her courage.

"What was the feeling which caused them? Tell me, I must know,--" he

said; but as he spoke he chanced to notice she had replaced her wedding

ring, it shone below his glittering ruby.

"That I will not bear!" he exclaimed, and with almost violence he

seized her wrist and forcibly drew both rings from her finger, and then

replaced his own.

"There shall be no token of another! No gold band there but mine, and

until then, no jewel but this ruby!"

Then he dropped her hand and turning, threw the wedding ring with

passion in the fire!