this same place.

"I want to talk with you, June--and I want to talk now."

"Yes, Jack," she said tremulously.

For a moment he stood in silence, his face half-turned, his teeth hard
on his indrawn lip--thinking. There was nothing of the mountaineer about
him now. He was clean-shaven and dressed with care--June saw that--but
he looked quite old, his face seemed harried with worries and ravaged by
suffering, and June had suddenly to swallow a quick surging of pity for
him. He spoke slowly and without looking at her:

"June, if it hadn't been for me, you would be over in Lonesome Cove and
happily married by this time, or at least contented with your life, for
you wouldn't have known any other."

"I don't know, Jack."

"I took you out--and it rests with you whether I shall be sorry I
did--sorry wholly on your account, I mean," he added hastily.

She knew what he meant and she said nothing--she only turned her head
away slightly, with her eyes upturned a little toward the leaves that
were shaking like her own heart.

"I think I see it all very clearly," he went on, in a low and perfectly
even voice. "You can't be happy over there now--you can't be happy over
here now. You've got other wishes, ambitions, dreams, now, and I want
you to realize them, and I want to help you to realize them all I
can--that's all."

"Jack!--" she helplessly, protestingly spoke his name in a whisper, but
that was all she could do, and he went on:

"It isn't so strange. What is strange is that I--that I didn't foresee
it all. But if I had," he added firmly, "I'd have done it just the
same--unless by doing it I've really done you more harm than good."

"No--no--Jack!"

"I came into your world--you went into mine. What I had grown
indifferent about--you grew to care about. You grew sensitive while I
was growing callous to certain--" he was about to say "surface things,"
but he checked himself--"certain things in life that mean more to a
woman than to a man. I would not have married you as you were--I've got
to be honest now--at least I thought it necessary that you should be
otherwise--and now you have gone beyond me, and now you do not want to
marry me as I am. And it is all very natural and very just." Very
slowly her head had dropped until her chin rested hard above the little
jewelled cross on her breast.

"You must tell me if I am wrong. You don't love me now--well enough to
be happy with me here"--he waved one hand toward the st