t make any date with me
for that. I say here's your chance to have a ride, to win a friend.
Take it or not. It's up to you. I won't say another word."

Rose's hungry, lonely heart warmed toward Swann. He seemed like a ray
of light in the gloom.

"I'll meet you," she said.

They arranged the hour and then she went on her way home.

The big car sped through River Park. Rose shivered a little as she
peered into the darkness of the grove. Then the car shot under the
last electric light, out into the country, with the level road white
in the moonlight, and the river gleaming below. There was a steady,
even rush of wind. The car hummed and droned and sang. And mingled
with the dry scent of dust was the sweet fragrance of new-mown hay.
Far off a light twinkled or it might have been a star.

Swann put his arm around Rose. She did not shrink--she did not repulse
him--she did not move. Something strange happened in her mind or
heart. It was that moment she fell.

And she fell wide-eyed, knowing what she was doing, not in a fervor of
excitement, without pleasure or passion, bitterly sure that it was
better to be with some one she could not like than to be alone
forever. The wrong to herself lay only in the fact that she could not
care.

CHAPTER XI

Toward the end of June, Lane's long vigil of watchfulness from the
vantage-point at Colonel Pepper's apartment resulted in a confirmation
of his worst fears.

One afternoon and evening of a warm, close day in early summer he lay
and crouched on the attic floor above the club-rooms from three
o'clock until one the next morning. From time to time he had changed
his position to rest. But at the expiration of that protracted period
of spying he was so exhausted from the physical strain and mental
shock that he was unable to go home. All the rest of the night he lay
upon Colonel Pepper's couch, wide awake, consumed by pain and
distress. About daylight he fell into a sleep, fitful and full of
nightmares, to be awakened around nine o'clock by Pepper. The old
gambler evinced considerable alarm until Lane explained how he
happened to be there; and then his feeling changed to solicitude.

"Lane, you look awful," he said.

"If I look the way I feel it's no wonder you're shocked," returned
Lane.

"Ahuh! What'd you see?" queried the other, curiously.

"When?"

"Why, you numskull, while you were peepin' all that time."

Lane sombrely shook his head. "I couldn't tell--what