cared eyes, while he gazed down at her as if he would
fasten something on his mind that must never be forgotten. Suddenly
he lifted her soft cold hands to his lips and kissed them passionately
again and again; then he held them in his own against his cheek, his
glance still fixed intently upon her; it held something of bitterness
and reproach, but now she kept her eyes under their quivering lids from
him.

"What am I to do without you?"--his voice was almost a whisper. "What is
this thing you have done?" Betty's heart was beating with dull sickening
throbs, but she dared not trust herself to answer him. He took both her
hands in one of his, and, slipping the other under her chin, raised her
face so that he could look into her eyes; then he put his arm loosely
about her, holding her hands against his breast. "If I could have had
one moment out of all the years for my own--only one. I am glad you
don't care, dear; it hurts when you reach the end of something that has
been all your hope and filled all your days. I have come to say good-by,
Betty; this is the last time I shall see you. I am going away."

All in an instant Betty pressed close to him, hiding her face in his
arm; she clung to him in a panic of pain and horror. She felt something
stir within her that had never been there before, as a storm of
passionate longing swept through her. Her words, her promise to another
man, became as nothing. All her pride was forgotten. Without this man
the days stretched away before her a blank. His arm drew her closer
still, until she felt her heart throb against his.

"Do you care?" he said, and seemed to wonder that she should.

"Bruce, Bruce, I didn't know--and now--Oh, my dear, my dear--" He
pressed his lips against the bright little head that rested in such
miserable abandon against his shoulder.

"Do you love me?" he whispered. The blood ran riot in his veins.

"Why have you stayed away--why didn't you come to me? I have promised
him--" she gasped.

"I know," he said, and shut his lips. There was another silence while
she waited for him to speak. She felt that she was at his mercy, that
whether right or wrong, as he decided so it would be. At length he said.
"I thought it wasn't fair to him, and it seemed so hopeless after I came
here. I had nothing--and a man feels that--so I kept away." He spoke
awkwardly with something of the reserve that was habitual to him.

"If you had only come!" she moaned.

"I did--once,"