de of her nature asserted itself. Pride, too, helped her
instinctive feminine secretiveness. She lived for months in her
father's house without giving those that were dear to her any occasion
for suspicion. In order to preserve the secrecy Boyce was bound to
continue his visits to Wellings Park. Now and then, when they met
alone, she upbraided him bitterly. On the whole, however, he concluded
that they had agreed to bury an ugly chapter in their lives.

Yes, it was an ugly chapter. From such you cannot get away, bury it, as
you will, never so deep.

"And all the time remember," he said, "that I was mad for Betty. The
more shy she was, the madder I grew. I could not rest in Wellingsford
without her. When she came here, I came. When she went to town, I went
to town. She was as elusive as a dream. Finally I pinned her down to a
date for our marriage in August. It was the last time I saw her. She
went away to stay with friends. That was the beginning of June. She was
to be away two months. I knew, if I had clamoured, she would have made
it three. It was the shyness of the exquisite bird in her that
fascinated me. I could never touch Betty in those days without dreading
lest I might soil her feathers. You may laugh at a hulking brute like
me saying such things, but that's the way I saw Betty, that's the way I
felt towards her. I could no more have taken her into my bear's hug and
kissed her roughly than I could have smashed a child down with my fist.
And yet--My God, man! how I ached for her!"

Long as I had loved Betty in a fatherly way, deeply as I loved her now,
the man's unexpected picture of her was a revelation. You see it was
only after her marriage, when she had softened and grown a woman and
come so near me that I felt the great comfort of her presence when she
was by, the need of it when she was away. How could I have known
anything of the elusiveness in her maidenhood before which he knelt so
reverently?

That he so knelt is the keynote of the man's soul untainted by the
flesh.

It made clear to me the tenderness that lay beneath that which was
brutal; the reason of that personal charm which had captivated me
against my will; his defencelessness against the Furies.

So far the narrative has reached the latter part of June. He had spent
the month with his mother. As Betty had ordained that July should be
blank, a month during which the moon should know no changes but only
the crescent of Diana should shine s