imminent. Later he drifted with Susan to the door, and they passed out
into the obscurity beyond. Even now he was reluctant to speak, to break
with importunities the serene mood. "All the iron making," she spoke at
last, "lovely. I have stood night after night in the cast house watching
the metal pour out in its glorious colours. And, when I wake, I go to my
window and see the reflections of the blast on the trees, on the first
leaves. The charcoal burners come down like giants out of the mythology
of the forest. And, when I first came, there was a raccoon hunt, with a
great stirring of lanterns and barking dogs in the dark ... all lovely."

"It is yours," he said, bending over her. "You can come here at your
will. A house built. And Myrtle Forge, too; whatever I have, am." He
paused; but, without reply, continued more rapidly. "It's over, the--the
misery of the past weeks; the mistakes are dead; they are paid, Susan.
Now we may take what is left and make it as beautiful as possible. After
suffering, reparation, happiness, is every one's due. And I am certain I
can make you happy."

A longer pause followed, in which he regarded her with an increasing
anxiety. Her face was turned away, her progress grew slower until they
stood by the shadowy bulk of a small stone structure. The door was open,
and it seemed to him that she looked within. "A store house," he
explained. Nothing was visible in the interior gloom but some obscure
shapes, bales, piled against the walls, and the scant tracery of a rude
stair leading up to a greater blackness above. She stopped, as if
arrested by his period, laying a hand on the door frame.

"Why don't you answer me, Susan?" he proceeded. "You know that I want to
marry you; surely it is all right now. Everything possible has been
done. A great deal of life remains." Her answer was so low that it
almost escaped him; the faintest breath of pain, of longing and regret.
"I can't," she whispered; "not with her, the child. I can't."

"That," he replied gently, "is a mistaken idea of responsibility, a
needless sacrifice. I could never urge you into an injustice, a wrong;
at last I have got above that; what I want is the most reasonable thing
imaginable, the best, in every conceivable way, for yourself and--any
other. You are harming, depriving, no one. You are taking nothing but
your own, what has been yours, and only yours, from the first moment I
saw, no--from my birth. What has happened brought me