ot?" he said.

Desperately she faced him, for her heart still quaked within her. The
shock of Capper's revelation was still upon her. He had come to her too
soon. "Nap," she said, "I ask you to leave me, and I mean it. Please go!"

But he only drew nearer to her, and she saw that his face was stern. He
thrust it forward, and regarded her closely.

"So," he said slowly, "he has told you all about me, has he?"

She bent her head. It was useless to attempt to evade the matter now.

"I am mightily obliged to him," said Nap. "I wanted you to know."

Anne was silent.

After a moment he went on. "I meant to have told you myself. I even began
to tell you once, but somehow you put me off. It was that night at
Baronmead--you remember?--the night you wanted to help me."

Well she remembered that night--the man's scarcely veiled despair, his
bitter railing against the ironies of life. So this had been the meaning
of it all. A thrill of pity went through her.

"Yes," he said. "I knew you'd be sorry for me. I guess pity is about the
cheapest commodity on the market. But--you'll hardly believe it--I don't
want your pity. After all, a man is himself, and it can't be of much
importance where he springs from--anyway, to the woman who loves him."

He spoke recklessly, and yet she seemed to detect a vein of entreaty
in his words. She steeled her heart against it, but it affected her
none the less.

"Nap," she said firmly, "there must be no more talk of love between us. I
told you this afternoon that I would not listen, and I will not. Do you
understand me? It must end here and now. I am in earnest."

"You don't say!" said Nap.

He was standing close to her, and again fear stabbed her--fear that was
almost abhorrence. There was something about him that was horribly
suggestive of a menacing animal.

"I am in earnest," she said again. But she could not meet his eyes any
longer. She dared not let him read her soul just then.

"I am in earnest too," said Nap. "But you needn't be afraid of me on that
account. I may be a savage, but I'm not despicable. If I take more than
you are prepared to offer it's only because I know it to be my own." He
bent towards her, trying to see her face. "My own, Anne!" he said again
very softly. "My own!"

But at his movement she drew back sharply, with a gesture of such
instinctive, such involuntary recoil, that in an instant she knew that
she had betrayed that which she had sought to hide.

He