ietly, "might possibly succeed in
making you happy, but it wouldn't be the same thing. You would have to
live my life--not I yours. I am not like Lucas. I shouldn't be satisfied
with--a little."

"And you think that is all I can offer him?" she said.

He made a sharp gesture of repudiation. "I have no theories on that
subject. I believe you would satisfy him. I believe--ultimately--you
would both find the happiness we are all hunting for."

"And you?" Anne said, her voice very low.

He straightened himself with a backward fling of the shoulders, but still
he did not look at her. "I, Lady Carfax!" he said grimly. "I don't fit
into the scheme of things anyway. I was just pitchforked into your life
by an accident. It's for you to toss me out again."

Anne was silent. She stood with her face to the sinking sun. She seemed
to be gathering her strength.

At last, "What will you do?" she asked in the same hushed voice. "Where
will you go?"

He turned slowly towards her. "I really don't know. I haven't begun
to think."

His eyes looked deeply into hers, but they held no passion, no emotion of
any sort. They made her think with a sudden intolerable stab of pain of
that night when he had put out the fire of his passion to receive her
kiss. He had told her once that that kiss was the greatest thing that had
ever happened to him. Did he remember it now, she wondered, as she met
those brooding eyes, still and dark and lonely as they had been then,
unfathomable as a mountain pool. She did not fear to meet them. Only a
vast, surging pity filled her soul. She understood him so well--so well.

"Nap," she said tremulously, "what can I say to you? What can I do?"

He put out a quiet, unfaltering hand and took hers. "Don't be too good to
me," he said. "Don't worry any on my account. If you do, maybe Luke will
notice and misunderstand. He's so damnably shrewd." A brief smile crossed
his face. "I'll tell you what to do, Lady Carfax, and when it's done
you'll feel better. Come with me now to Lucas--it's his own idea--and
tell him you've no use for me. Put it how you like. Women can always do
these things. Make him know that he comes first with you still and always
will. Tell him you know all the truth and it hasn't made you change your
mind. Tell him you'd rather belong to a man you can trust. He'll believe
you, Anne. We all do."

He spoke insistently. He had begun to draw her towards the path. But as
they reached it, his hand fe