ou reproach yourself so bitterly? You did the only thing it was
possible for you to do. No man living could have done anything else."

He turned to her now, and he had recaptured his self-control.

"It is sweet--and kind--of you to say just that." Even now his voice was
not quite steady. "And if I could believe it--but all the time I tell
myself if I had only waited ... there would perhaps have been a
chance ... I was too quick, too ready to obey her request, to carry out
my promise...."

"No, Dr. Anstice." In Iris' voice was a womanliness which showed his
story had reached the depths of her being. "I'm quite certain that's the
wrong way to look at it. As things were, there was nothing else to be
done, _nothing_. If I had been the girl," said Iris quietly, "I should
have thought you very cruel if you had broken your promise to me."

"Ah, yes," he said, slowly; "but you see there is another factor in the
case which I haven't told you--yet. She was engaged to be married--and
by acting prematurely I destroyed the hopes of the man who loved
her--whom she loved to the last second of her life."

This time Iris was silent so long that he went on speaking with an
attempt at a lighter tone.

"Well, that's the story--and a pretty gloomy one, isn't it? But I have
no right to inflict my private sorrows on you, and so----"

She interrupted him as though she had not heard his last words.

"Dr. Anstice, when you realized what had happened, what did you do? I
mean, when you came back to England? I suppose you did come back, after
that?"

"Yes. I had an interview with the man--the girl's _fiance_ and came
home." He shrugged his shoulders, a bitter memory chasing away the
softer emotions of the preceding moment. "What did I do? Well, I did
what a dozen other fellows might have done in my place. I sought
forgetfulness of the past by various means, tried to drown the thought
of what had happened in every way I could, and merely succeeded in
delivering myself over to a bondage a hundred times more terrible than
that from which I was trying to escape."

For the first time Iris looked perplexed.

"I don't think I understand," she said, and again Anstice's face
changed.

"No," he said, and his voice was gentle, "of course you don't. And
there's no reason why you should. Let us leave the matter at that, Miss
Wayne. I am grateful to you for listening so patiently to my story."

"Ah," she said, and her eyes were wistful, "but I sho