But she knew nothing of the cruel hunting instinct which had prompted what had immediately followed her entry into the room.
“What is your name?” he had asked, and when she answered, “Lucy, sir. I’m Mrs. Warren’s daughter,” he had got up and, gazing straight into her face, had uttered the strange, poignant words—“A dying man—for that’s what I’m supposed to be, my pretty dear—ought to be given a certain license, eh?”
“License, sir?” she had repeated, falteringly.
“License in the way of love-making! I suppose you know, Lucy, that I’m said to be dying? And so I am—dying for a little love!”
That had been the beginning of it all. And though she had been, for quite a long while, what she termed to herself “standoffish,” they had become, in time, dear friends—meeting often in secret, as some
