‘How many things do we intend to do that are never carried out?’ said Gaston, gently.  ‘Do you mean that you will break your promise?’ she asked, with a scared face.

Vandeloup removed the cigarette from his mouth, and, leaning one elbow on the mantelpiece, looked at her with a smile.

‘My dear,’ he said, quietly, ’things are not going well with me at present, and I want money badly.’

‘Well?’ asked Kitty in a whisper, her heart beating loudly.

‘You are not rich,’ said her lover, ’so why should we two paupers get married, only to plunge ourselves into misery?’

‘Then you refuse to marry me?’ she said, rising to her feet.

He bowed his head gently.

‘At present, yes,’ he answered, and replaced the cigarette between his lips.

Kitty stood for a moment as if turned to stone, and then throwing up her hands with a gesture of despair, fell back into the chair, and burst into a flood of tears.  Vandeloup shrugged his shoulders in a resigned sort of manner, and glanced at his watch to see when it would be time for him to go.  Meanwhile he smoked quietly on, and Kitty, after sobbing for some time, dried her eyes, and sat up in the chair again.

‘How long is this going to last?’ she asked, in a hard voice.

‘Till I get rich!’

‘That may be a long time?’

‘It may.’

‘Perhaps never?’

‘Perhaps!’

‘And then I will never be your wife?’

‘Unfortunately, no.’

‘You coward!’ burst forth Kitty, rising from her seat, and crossing over to him; ’you made me leave my home with your false promises, and now you refuse to make me the only reparation that is in your power.’

‘Circumstances are against any virtuous intentions I may entertain,’ retorted Vandeloup, coolly.

Kitty looked at him for a moment, then ran over to a desk near the window, and took from thence a small bottle of white glass with two red bands round it.  She let the lid of the desk fall with a bang, then crossed to Vandeloup, holding the bottle up before him.

‘Do you know what this is?’ she asked, in a harsh voice.

‘The poison I made in Ballarat,’ he answered, coolly, blowing a wreath of smoke; ‘how did you get hold of it?’

‘I found it in your private desk,’ she said, coldly.

‘That was wrong, my dear,’ he answered, gently, ’you should never betray confidences—­I left the desk in your charge, and it should have been sacred to you.’

‘Out of your own mouth are you condemned,’ said the girl, quickly; ’you have betrayed my confidence and ruined me, so if you do not fix a day for our marriage, I swear I will drink this and die at your feet.’

‘How melodramatic you are, Bebe,’ said Vandeloup, coolly; ’you put me in mind of Croisette in “Le Sphinx".’

‘You don’t believe I will do it.’

‘No!  I do not.’