ut it
would be easier to walk over red-hot ploughshares."

Anne flinched with the pain of his voice. And there was so little she
could say that would be adequate to the situation. Blame was out of
the question--advice was not needed--sympathy was mocked by the man's
stark agony. She could only feel with him in a maze of compassion and
regret. Her heart ached for Leslie! Had not that poor girl suffered
enough without this?

"It wouldn't be so hard to go and leave her if she were only happy,"
resumed Owen passionately. "But to think of her living death--to
realise what it is to which I do leave her! THAT is the worst of all.
I would give my life to make her happy--and I can do nothing even to
help her--nothing. She is bound forever to that poor wretch--with
nothing to look forward to but growing old in a succession of empty,
meaningless, barren years. It drives me mad to think of it. But I
must go through my life, never seeing her, but always knowing what she
is enduring. It's hideous--hideous!"

"It is very hard," said Anne sorrowfully. "We--her friends here--all
know how hard it is for her."

"And she is so richly fitted for life," said Owen rebelliously.

"Her beauty is the least of her dower--and she is the most beautiful
woman I've ever known. That laugh of hers! I've angled all summer to
evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it. And her
eyes--they are as deep and blue as the gulf out there. I never saw
such blueness--and gold! Did you ever see her hair down, Mrs. Blythe?"

"No."

"I did--once. I had gone down to the Point to go fishing with Captain
Jim but it was too rough to go out, so I came back. She had taken the
opportunity of what she expected to be an afternoon alone to wash her
hair, and she was standing on the veranda in the sunshine to dry it.
It fell all about her to her feet in a fountain of living gold. When
she saw me she hurried in, and the wind caught her hair and swirled it
all around her--Danae in her cloud. Somehow, just then the knowledge
that I loved her came home to me--and realised that I had loved her
from the moment I first saw her standing against the darkness in that
glow of light. And she must live on here--petting and soothing Dick,
pinching and saving for a mere existence, while I spend my life longing
vainly for her, and debarred, by that very fact, from even giving her
the little help a friend might. I walked the shore last night, almost
til