CHAPTER XIV.

ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN.

Sitting in her bijou apartments, which consisted of a handsome "Flat" in a quiet and respectable portion of New York, Dolores seemed lost in pleasant reverie, when her little French maid, Lorette, appeared before her.

"Everything is done but the dusting of this room, Madame," she said, in her native tongue. "Will Madame sit in the boudoir now--"

"No, Lorette, you can go," Dolores answered, speaking French with as fine an accent as the Parisian _née_. "I will finish dusting, and as I am to dine out with Monsieur to-day, you need not return before to-morrow."

Lorette, who came every morning to attend to the domestic duties of the little ménage, gladly took her congé, and Dolores flitted gayly about, dust-brush in hand, singing a merry snatch of opera, pausing at every sound, to listen for a familiar step, the perfect picture of a happy, expectant housewife making ready for the return of a loved one. Presently a quick footstep bounded up the stairs, and Dolores flew to the door before the latch-key could turn the lock, swung it wide open, and was closely clasped in the arms of Percy, who greeted her with a gay "_Bon matin, chère amie!_ and how have you been all these days?" Then, noticing the dust-brush on the floor beside her: "Why! how is this? has Lorette failed to make her appearance, that my lady-love has to perform her duties?"

"Oh, no! I sent her away," smiled Dolores. "I knew we did not need her to-day--and" (shyly) "I did not want any third person to mar our greeting after your long absence."

"Long!" Percy repeated, laughing, as he threw himself into an easy chair, and drew her down on an ottoman at his side. "Long? three days, _ma petite_? I am often absent from you as long as that."

"You have never before been absent from the city so long as that, in this year of our new life," she said, as she caressed his hands, "without taking me with you, _mon ami_."

"Well, but I often stay away from this charming nest, that length of time, without seeing you!"

"So long as I know you are in the city I am not lonely. The air I breathe seems impregnated with your breath, and I am happy and contented to await your coming. If I walk down street, I feel a kindly interest in the throngs of people I meet, because perchance you may be among them. But when you are out of town the whole world seems depopulated. Yesterday I walked on Broadway a little while, but the people all looked like ghastly phantoms to me. Because you were not, I knew, among them, there seemed to be no life, no beauty in the moving shapes. I hurried home and hid myself in these rooms, so full of memories of you."

Sweet as were her words of love and devotion, they cast a faint shadow on her listener's face.

"I am afraid you allow yourself to be too melancholy during my absence!" he said. "It makes me sad to think of you so lonely, I like to think of you as happy and contented always."

"Oh, I am, I am!" she hastened to reply. "How could I help being happy in this ideal life of ours? We are so independent of the world, so in harmony with our own principles, so true to each other--Oh, Percy! I do not think two people could be happier then we are; do you? Are you not perfectly happy with me, dear?"

Just for one second Percy hesitated before he replied. Then he met the anxious look of inquiry in Dolores' eyes, and answered:

"Yes, perfectly: or rather, I am happier in my companionship with you than I have been in many years. I know my life is better, too, in many ways, and my thoughts fairer, than in my old restless days of adventure. Yet, of course, no lot is without its annoyances and troubles. Did you ever think how strange it is, that man expects a whole eternity of unalloyed bliss, from a Ruler who denies him a single month of it here?"

Dolores shook her golden head.

"I used to speculate a great deal about the next world," she said. "I read all kinds of books on the subject, and I grew very much confused. Finally, I rested back on the orthodox ideas, as quite as sensible as any. I am sure the world and human nature is inclined to evil. I think it is a misfortune to exist, and that we need a future life to repay us for all we endure here. And I am sure it will require a Mediator to ever reconcile the Creator to us or to give us eternal joy; but we can attain it if we seek the way."

"I do not believe that we can attain any joys we have not earned here," Percy replied. "I do not believe in sudden conversions, or death-bed repentance, or being cleansed by blood. That faith gives a man too much latitude altogether. Every violated principle, every indulged appetite, every selfish or mean act or thought, I think will count against us on the last day, no matter how we repent at death's door, or how we cry out to be saved. Salvation depends upon ourselves, and the use we make of our time on earth. We are shaping our spirits by our daily lives while in the body. Just as we have shaped them--beautiful or hideous, they will appear before God when our bodies fall away and leave them bare. We cannot in a moment's space, expect any power to remove the scars we have made by a life-time of wrongdoing. It would not be a just power if it