It was the Wednesday just one week before the wedding that saw the pale-faced, tall and somewhat unsteady American deliberately leave his cab and stride manfully up the steps of a certain mansion in the Avenue Louise.  Miss Garrison was “not at home,” and her mother was “not at home.”  So said the obsequious footman.

’’Take my card to Miss Garrison,” said Quentin, coolly.  The man looked bewildered and was protesting that his young mistress was not in the house when the lady herself appeared at the top of the broad stairway.  Phil stood in the center of the hall watching her as she slowly descended the steps.  At the bottom of the steps she paused.  Neither spoke, neither smiled, for the crisis was upon them.  If he were pale from the loss of blood, she was white with the aches from a fever-consumed heart.

“Why have you come?” she asked, at last, her voice so low that the words scarcely reached his ears.

’’Dorothy,” was all he said.

“You knew what I must say to you before you entered the door.  Will you let me tell you how deeply I have grieved over your misfortune?  Are you quite wise in coming out before you have the strength?  You are so pale, so weak.  Won’t you go back to your—­to your hotel and save yourself all the pain that will come to you here?” There was pity in her eyes, entreaty in her voice, and he was enveloped in the tender warmth of her sincerity.  Never had she seemed so near as now, and yet never so far away.

“Dorothy, you must know what manner of love it is that brings me to plead for the smallest crumb of what has been once refused.  I come simply, in all humility, with outstretched hands to ask your love.”  He drew nearer, and she did not retreat.

“Oh, it is so useless—­so hopeless, Phil,” she said, softly.  “Why will you persist?  I cannot grant even the crumb.”

“I love you, Dorothy,” he cried passionately.

“Oh!  Phil; you must understand that I can give you nothing—­absolutely nothing.  For God’s sake—­for my sake, for the sake of that dear friendship we own together, go away and forget—­forget everything,” she said, piteously.

A half-hour later he slowly descended the steps, staggering like a man sick unto death.  She sat where he left her, her wide, dry eyes seeing nothing, her ears hearing nothing but the words his love had forced her to utter.  These words: 

“Yes, heaven help me, I do care for you.  But, go!  Go!  I can never see you again.  I shall keep the bargain I have made, if I die at the altar.  I cannot break my promise to him.”  And all his pleading could not break down that decision—­not even when she found herself for one brief, terrible instant in his straining arms, his lips upon hers.

It was all over.  He calmly told his friends, as he had told her, that he would sail for New York on the first steamer, and Turk reluctantly began to pack the things.  The night before he was to leave for Hamburg, the Saxondales, Lady Jane and Savage sat with him long into the night.  Prince Ugo’s watchdogs were not long in discovering the sudden turn affairs had taken, and he was gleefully celebrating the capitulation.