t with you, Jack--just you! I don't fear poverty. You
could write some more wonderful books. I could work, too, Jack dear.
I--I could teach music--or take in washing--or something, anyway. Lots
of women support themselves, you know. Oh, Jack, we would be so happy!
Don't be honorable and brave and disagreeable, Jack dear!"

For a moment Charteris was silent. The nostrils of his beak-like nose
widened a little, and a curious look came into his face. He discovered
something in the sand that interested him.

"After all," he demanded, slowly, "is it necessary--to go away--to be
happy?"

"I don't understand." Her hand lifted from his arm; then quick remorse
smote her, and it fluttered back, confidingly.

Charteris rose to his feet. "It is, doubtless, a very spectacular and
very stirring performance to cast your cap over the wind-mill in the
face of the world; but, after all, is it not a bit foolish, Patricia?
Lots of people manage these things--more quietly."

"Oh, Jack!" Patricia's face turned red, then white, and stiffened in a
sort of sick terror. She was a frightened Columbine in stone. "I thought
you cared for me--really, not--that way."

Patricia rose and spoke with composure. "I think I'll go back to the
house, Mr. Charteris. It's a bit chilly here. You needn't bother to
come."

Then Mr. Charteris laughed--a choking, sobbing laugh. He raised his
hands impotently toward heaven. "And to think," he cried, "to think that
a man may love a woman with his whole heart--with all that is best and
noblest in him--and she understand him so little!"

"I do not think I have misunderstood you," Patricia said, in a crisp
voice. "Your proposition was very explicit. I--am sorry. I thought I had
found one thing in the world which I would regret to leave--"

"And you really believed that I could sully the great love I bear you by
stooping to--that! You really believed that I would sacrifice to you my
home life, my honor, my prospects--all that a man can give--without
testing the quality of your love! You did not know that I spoke to try
you--you actually did not know! Eh, but yours is a light nature,
Patricia! I do not reproach you, for you are only as your narrow
Philistine life has made you. Yet I had hoped better things of you,
Patricia. But you, who pretend to care for me, have leaped at your first
opportunity to pain me--and, if it be any comfort to you, I confess you
have pained me beyond words." And he sank down on the lo