o thrust him back but she could not. She stood--a
prisoner--in his hold.

He waited a moment, still with his face bent over her, his lips close to
her neck. "Is it anything that--matters?" he asked.

She felt his arms drawing her and quivered again like a trapped bird.
"Yes," she whispered.

"Very much?"

"Yes," she said again.

"Then you are angry with me," he said.

She was silent.

He pressed her suddenly very close. "Juliet, you don't hate me, do you?"

She caught her breath with a sob that sounded painfully hard and dry.
"I--couldn't have married you--if I had known," she said.

He started a little and lifted his head. "As bad as that!" he said.

For a space there was silence between them while his eyes dwelt sombrely
upon the litter of books upon the table, and still his arms enfolded her
though he did not hold her close. When at last she made as if she would
release herself, he still would not let her go.

"Will you listen to me?" he said. "Give me a hearing--just for a minute?
You have forgiven so much in me that is really bad that I can't feel this
last to be--quite unpardonable. Juliet, I haven't really wronged you. You
have got a false impression of the man who wrote those books. It's a
prejudice which I have promised myself to overcome. But I must have time.
Will you defer judgment--for my sake--till you have read this latest
book, written when you first came into my life? Will you--Juliet, will
you have patience till I have proved myself?"

She shivered as she stood. "You don't know--what you have done," she
said.

He made a quick gesture of protest. "Yes, I do know. I know quite well.
I have hurt you, deceived you. But hear my defence anyway! I never meant
to marry you in the first place without telling you, but I always wanted
you to read this book of mine first. It's different from the others. I
wanted you to see the difference. But then I got carried away as you
know. I loved you so tremendously. I couldn't hold myself in. Then--when
you came to me in my misery--it was all up with me, and I fell. I
couldn't tell you then, Juliet, I wasn't ready for you to know. So I
waited--till the book could be published and you could read it. I am
infernally sorry you found out like this. I wanted you--so badly--to
read it with an open mind. And now--whichever way you look at it--you
certainly won't do that."

There was a whimsical note in his voice despite its obvious sincerity as
he ended, and Jul