t good-by to each other?"

She took down her hands, drew a long breath and looked up at him; but
she was unable to meet the look in his eyes, the loving, hungry look
which she had learned to know so well.

"We have loved each other, dear girl. I have been better and stronger
for your love. I only wish it might have lasted, for in time it might
have made me quite steady. But I am glad I have had so much. Whatever
the future has for me, at least I have had something in the past."

The hardness had left his tone, and the passionate, bitter ring. There
was nothing now but the note of utter sadness. Beatrix trembled for
herself, for the fate of her resolve, as she heard it.

"But I couldn't hold you, Sidney."

"No, dear; perhaps not. But you held me more than you knew. You only saw
the times I slipped; you never had any idea of the times I nearly went
under, and pulled myself up again for your sake. If it hadn't been for
you and Thayer, for Thayer before I ever saw you, dear, I should have
gone under long ago. Now Thayer will have it all to do."

There was no reproach in his voice. He seemed to be merely stating the
fact, not entirely for her ears, but as if he were trying to accustom
himself to the thought of all which it implied. Suddenly his shoulders
straightened; his tone grew resonant; his words came more rapidly.

"It is in my blood, Beatrix. My mother was weak, and I am weaker still.
I know the danger; I see it and I tell myself that I must fight shy of
it. For a while I do fight shy of it, till I get off my guard and think
I am quite safe. The next thing I know, it has cropped out again, and I
haven't the nerve to face it and knock it over. It knocks me over,
instead, and each knock is just a little harder than the one before it
has been. I realize it, and I try to down it; but that's all the good it
does. I am weak, Beatrix, weak and selfish. I honestly think it is
harder for me to keep steady than it would be for Thayer, or even for
Bobby. The taint is in me. I don't mean that it is any excuse for my
making a brute of myself; but, if there is any pity in God, he must give
a little bit of it to us fellows, born weak, realizing our weakness and
truly meaning to fight it, and yet giving in to it again and again."

"There is pity in God, Sidney," she said drearily; "but pity can't do
any good in a case like this. You need help, not pity."

"The help of man?" he asked bitterly. "Who will give it? They are too