ements, the
gutters ran floods, and fragments of umbrellas and garments floated
incongruously on the tide.

Battling against the wind, Conning made his way to Lynda's. As he drew
near the house the glow from the windows seemed to meet and touch him
with welcome.

"I'll economize somewhere," Lynda often said, "but when darkness comes
I'm always going to do my best to get the better of it."

Just for one blank moment Truedale had a sickening thought: "Suppose
that welcome was never again for him, after this night?" Then he laughed
derisively. Lynda might have her ideals, her eternal reservations, but
she also had her superb faithfulness. After she knew _all_, she would
still be his friend.

When he went into the library Lynda sat before the fire knitting a long
strip of vivid wools. Conning had never seen her so employed and it had
the effect of puzzling him; it was like seeing her--well, smoking, as
some of her friends did! Nothing wrong in it--but, inharmonious.

"What are you making, Lyn?" he asked, taking the ottoman and drawing
close to her.

"It--it isn't anything, Con. No one wants trash like this. It fulfils
its mission when it is ravelled and knitted, then unravelled. You know
what Stevenson says: 'I travel for travel's sake; the great affair is to
move.' I knit for knitting's sake; it keeps my hands busy while my--my
soul basks."

She looked up with a smile and Truedale saw that she was ill at ease. It
was the one thing that unnerved him. Had she been her old,
self-contained self he could have depended upon her to bear her part
while he eased his soul by burdening hers; but now he caught in her the
appealing tenderness that had always awakened in old William Truedale
the effort to save her from herself--from the cares others laid upon
her.

Conning, instead of plunging into his confession, looked at her in such
a protecting, yearning way that Lynda's eyes fell, and the soft colour
slowly crept in her cheeks.

In the stillness, that neither knew how to break, Truedale noticed the
gown Lynda wore. It was blue and clinging. The whiteness of her slim
arms showed through the loose sleeves; the round throat was bare and
girlish in its drooping curve.

For one mad moment Truedale tried to stifle his conscience. Why should
he not have this love and happiness that lay close to him? In what was
he different from the majority of men? Then he thought--as others before
him had thought--that, since the race must