t feel so badly in a week or a
fortnight. Don't do anything final yet! Put him off for a bit. He'll
understand."

But Olga would not listen to this suggestion. "I must be free, Nick!"
she said feverishly. "I can't be bound to him any longer. Oh, Nick, do
help me to get free!"

"My dear child, you are free," Nick assured her. "But take my advice;
don't shake him off completely. Give him just a chance, poor chap! Wait
six months before you quite make up your mind to have done with him.
You'll be sure to want him back if you don't."

But still Olga would not listen. "Oh, Nick, please stop!" she implored
him. "I've been through it all a hundred times already, and indeed I
know my own mind. If it were to drag on over six months, I don't think I
could possibly bear it. No, no! It must be final now. Nick--dear, don't
you understand?"

He nodded. "Yes, I do understand, Olga _mia_; but I think you are making
a big mistake. The horror of the thing has blinded you temporarily. You
are incapable of forming a clear judgment at present. By and by you will
begin to see better. That's why I want you to wait."

"But I can't wait," she said. "It--it is like a dreadful wound, Nick. I
want to bind it up quick--quick, before it gets any worse,--to hide
it,--to try and forget it's there. I can't--I daren't--keep it open. I
think it would kill me."

There was actual agony in her voice, and Nick saw that he had made his
last stand in vain. Yet not instantly did he abandon it. Once more he
thrust past her defences, though she sought so desperately to keep him
out.

"It's not for us to judge each other, is it?" he said. "Be merciful,
Olga! Don't you think there may have been--extenuating circumstances?"

She looked at him with quivering lips, and dumbly shook her head.

"Listen!" he said. "When Muriel and I were flying from Wara, I killed a
man with my hands under her eyes. It was a ghastly business. I did it to
save her life and my own. But--like you--she didn't look at the
motive--only at the deed. And in consequence I became a thing abhorrent
in her sight. She didn't get over it for a long time. But she forgave me
at last. Can't you be equally generous? Or don't you love him well
enough?"

Olga's hands clasped one another very tightly. She answered him under
her breath. "I expect that's it, Nick, I don't love him any more at all.
It has killed my love."

"Then you never loved him," said Nick with conviction.

She made no attem