h the gesture of a
man whose patience is completely at an end. "I haven't the vaguest idea
what you're hinting at."

"Then I'll be brutally explicit. You've at no time told her who you were
or where you came from before you made a name for yourself. You've
evaded all her questions. You told a palpable falsehood in her presence
when you insisted that you had never known me. You're perfectly aware
that, if you approached her father, all the facts about your past, which
you're suppressing, would most certainly come out. Your courting has
been clandestine, behind the back of her family. It seems perfectly
obvious that you're trying to lure her into a runaway match. She has
grounds for believing that you do not trust her and, because of that,
although you fascinate her, she finds it impossible to trust you in
return. She trusts you so little that she did not dare to risk facing
you and sent me in her stead. She's so sure that a marriage with you
would be unfortunate that, in order to save herself from it, she's
willing to become engaged to me, whom she loves only as a friend. You'll
wonder why I tell you all this. It's because I want her to be happy. If
you really are the man for her, she must have you. But you'll never have
the remotest chance of winning her unless you make a clean breast----"

"If I did my chances would be at an end."

"If you believe that," Tabs sought for the most lenient words, "you know
what you're doing. You'd despise to cheat at cards, but you don't mind
cheating the woman whom you profess to love best.--And then there's
Ann."

"I'd rather not discuss Ann." The abrupt pain in Braithwaite's tone
betrayed the grumbling ache of an old wound. "I think even you will
grant that there are some things in a man's heart which are privately
sacred. Ann lies entirely outside the bounds of all justifiable
interference on your part."

It took an effort for Tabs to bring himself to break down the barrier of
reticence which this depth of feeling had imposed. "I'm sorry, General,
but I can't agree with you." He waited for the expected protest. When it
did not come, he carried on reluctantly, "I have a high regard for Ann.
She's one of my household and that makes me responsible for her to an
extent. I can't allow her to be tortured any longer with suspense--she's
had more than three years of this horrid nightmare, hovering between
hope and dread. Every day of the three years has been unnecessary.
Whether you bre