and she will if she sees him."

"Is that better than loving a man who loves her?" The words dropped
from his lips before he could recall them--forced out, as it were, by
the pressure of his heart.

Jane caught her breath and the color rose in her cheeks. She knew he
did not mean her, and yet she saw he spoke from his heart. Doctor
John's face, however, gave no sign of his thoughts.

"But, John, I don't know that she does love him. She doesn't say
so--she says HE loves her. And if she did, we cannot all follow our own
hearts."

"Why not?" he replied calmly, looking straight ahead of him: at the
bend in the road, at the crows flying in the air, at the leaden sky
between the rows of pines. If she wanted to give him her confidence he
was ready now with heart and arms wide open. Perhaps his hour had come
at last.

"Because--because," she faltered, "our duty comes in. That is holier
than love." Then her voice rose and steadied itself--"Lucy's duty is to
come home."

He understood. The gate was still shut; the wall still confronted him.
He could not and would not scale it. She had risked her own
happiness--even her reputation--to keep this skeleton hidden, the
secret inviolate. Only in the late years had she begun to recover from
the strain. She had stood the brunt and borne the sufferings of
another's sin without complaint, without reward, giving up everything
in life in consecration to her trust. He, of all men, could not tear
the mask away, nor could he stoop by the more subtle paths of
friendship, love, or duty to seek to look behind it--not without her
own free and willing hand to guide him. There was nothing else in all
her life that she had not told him. Every thought was his, every
resolve, every joy. She would entrust him with this if it was hers to
give. Until she did his lips would be sealed. As to Lucy, it could make
no difference. Bart lying in a foreign grave would never trouble her
again, and Archie would only be a stumbling-block in her career. She
would never love the boy, come what might. If this Frenchman filled her
ideal, it was best for her to end her days across the water--best
certainly for Jane, to whom she had only brought unhappiness.

For some moments he busied himself with the reins, loosening them from
where they were caught in the harness; then he bent his head and said
slowly, and with the tone of the physician in consultation:

"Your protest will do no good, Jane, and your trip abroad