d that. Oh, don't be afraid--I'll
find a reason. But it's perfectly clear that I must go."

She uttered a protesting cry. "Go away? You? Don't you see that that
would tell everything--drag everybody into the horror?"

He found no answer, and her voice dropped back to its calmer note. "What
good would your going do? Do you suppose it would change anything for
me?" She looked at him with a musing wistfulness. "I wonder what your
feeling for me was? It seems queer that I've never really known--I
suppose we DON'T know much about that kind of feeling. Is it like taking
a drink when you're thirsty?...I used to feel as if all of me was in the
palm of your hand..."

He bowed his humbled head, but she went on almost exultantly: "Don't for
a minute think I'm sorry! It was worth every penny it cost. My mistake
was in being ashamed, just at first, of its having cost such a lot.
I tried to carry it off as a joke--to talk of it to myself as an
'adventure'. I'd always wanted adventures, and you'd given me one, and
I tried to take your attitude about it, to 'play the game' and convince
myself that I hadn't risked any more on it than you. Then, when I met
you again, I suddenly saw that I HAD risked more, but that I'd won more,
too--such worlds! I'd been trying all the while to put everything I
could between us; now I want to sweep everything away. I'd been trying
to forget how you looked; now I want to remember you always. I'd been
trying not to hear your voice; now I never want to hear any other. I've
made my choice--that's all: I've had you and I mean to keep you." Her
face was shining like her eyes. "To keep you hidden away here," she
ended, and put her hand upon her breast.

After she had left him, Darrow continued to sit motionless, staring back
into their past. Hitherto it had lingered on the edge of his mind in a
vague pink blur, like one of the little rose-leaf clouds that a setting
sun drops from its disk. Now it was a huge looming darkness, through
which his eyes vainly strained. The whole episode was still obscure to
him, save where here and there, as they talked, some phrase or gesture
or intonation of the girl's had lit up a little spot in the night.

She had said: "I wonder what your feeling for me was?" and he found
himself wondering too...He remembered distinctly enough that he had not
meant the perilous passion--even in its most transient form--to play
a part in their relation. In that respect his attitude had been