ou that," Juliet said quietly.

He nodded. "Now it's coming! I thought it would. No, Miss Moore, I am
not easy to get on with. I've had a rotten life all through, and it
hasn't made me very pliable." He paused, looking at her under his black
brows as if debating with himself as to how far he would take her into
his confidence. "I've been cheated of the best from the very outset," he
said, "cheated and thwarted at every turn. That sort of treatment may
suit some people, but it hasn't made an archangel of me." He fell to
pacing up and down the room, staring moodily at the floor, his hands
behind him. "Life is such an infernal gamble at the best," he said; "but
I never had a chance. It's been one damn thing after another. I've
tripped at every hurdle. I suppose you never came a cropper in your
life--don't know what it means."

"I think I do know what it means," Juliet said slowly. "I've looked on,
you know. I've seen--a good many things."

"Just as you're looking on now, eh?" said the squire, grimly smiling.
"Well, you profit by my experience--if you can! And if love ever comes
your way, hang on to it, hang on to it for all you're worth, even if you
drop everything else to do it! It's the gift of the gods, my dear, and if
you throw it away once it'll never come your way again."

"No, I know," said Juliet. She rested her arm on the mantelpiece, gravely
watching him. "I've noticed that."

"Noticed it, have you?" He flung her a look as he passed. "You've
never been in love, that's certain, never seriously I mean,--never up
to the neck."

"No, never so deep as that!" said Juliet.

He passed on to the end of the room, and came to a sudden stand before
the window. "I--have!" he said, and his voice came with an odd jerkiness
as if it covered some emotion that he could not wholly control. "I won't
bore you with details. But I loved a woman once--I loved her madly. And
she loved me. But--Fate--came between. She's dead now. Her troubles are
over, and I'm not such a selfish brute as to want her back. Yet I
sometimes think to myself--that if I'd married that woman--I'd have made
her happy, and I'd have been a better man myself than I am to-day." He
swung round restlessly, found her steady eyes upon him, and came back to
her. "The fact of the matter is, Miss Moore," he said, "I was a skunk
ever to marry at all--after that."

"It depends how you look at it," she said gently.

"Don't you look at it that way?" he said, regarding