the table. "I am going
away again to-morrow," he said, "for always, I think. Have I startled
you? I only came to say good-by--and to wish you a happy birthday."

"Oh you remembered!" she cried. "_You_ remembered! I might have known
you would."

But the revulsion had been too great. She had been wrong after all.
Jadwin had forgotten. Emotions to which she could put no name swelled
in her heart and rose in a quick, gasping sob to her throat. The tears
sprang to her eyes. Old impulses, forgotten impetuosities whipped her
on.

"Oh, you remembered, you remembered!" she cried again, holding out both
her hands.

He caught them in his own.

"Remembered!" he echoed. "I have never forgotten."

"No, no," she replied, shaking her head, winking back the tears. "You
don't understand. I spoke before I thought. You don't understand."

"I do, believe me, I do," he exclaimed. "I understand you better than
you understand yourself."

Laura's answer was a cry.

"Oh, then, why did you ever leave me--you who did understand me? Why
did you leave me only because I told you to go? Why didn't you make me
love you then? Why didn't you make me understand myself?" She clasped
her hands tight together upon her breast; her words, torn by her sobs,
came all but incoherent from behind her shut teeth. "No, no!" she
exclaimed, as he made towards her. "Don't touch me, don't touch me! It
is too late."

"It is not too late. Listen--listen to me."

"Oh, why weren't you a man, strong enough to know a woman's weakness?
You can only torture me now. Ah, I hate you! I hate you!"

"You love me! I tell you, you love me!" he cried, passionately, and
before she was aware of it she was in his arms, his lips were against
her lips, were on her shoulders, her neck.

"You love me!" he cried. "You love me! I defy you to say you do not."

"Oh, make me love you, then," she answered. "_Make_ me believe that you
do love me."

"Don't you know," he cried, "don't you know how I have loved you? Oh,
from the very first! My love has been my life, has been my death, my
one joy, and my one bitterness. It has always been you, dearest, year
after year, hour after hour. And now I've found you again. And now I
shall never, never let you go."

"No, no! Ah, don't, don't!" she begged. "I implore you. I am weak,
weak. Just a word, and I would forget everything."

"And I do speak that word, and your own heart answers me in spite of
you, and you will forget--forget everyth