. But
later I heard of her marriage--Miss Williams'.... Perhaps, I told
myself, things were different with you now. I heard of you from time to
time ... and never as of one who was very happy."

She paused and Stuart laid a hand gently on hers, but she withdrew her
own and began afresh:

"I don't care for the word 'chastened,' but I knew that I'd learned some
things. I knew that I wasn't that same woman any more. The irresponsible
lightness had been pretty well cured ... and I wasn't very happy,
either.

"Marian," he declared feelingly, "you don't have to defend yourself to
me. The man who won your love could feel nothing but pride."

"Thank you," she said briefly. "I'm not through yet.... I thought that
if you met the _new_ me ... you might revise your _old_ opinion.... I
thought at least that I could study you and that afterward there would
be no uncertainty.... You spoke of the coincidence of our meeting. There
was no coincidence about it. I was traveling more or less at random, but
I knew you must come through Yokohama and I waylaid you. When Jimmy
Hancock told me at the chance that you were taking this boat, I took it,
too.... It meant ten days in which to study you--but I needed only ten
seconds. I saw your face when we met on deck ... and that told me all
there was to tell."

CHAPTER XVII

She came to a stop and sat looking out at the phosphorescent sea and the
star-filled skies. Farquaharson leaned forward, his words coming
brokenly and in a heavy misery of embarrassment.

"Marian, I _have_ recognized the new you: I've seen the splendid
development and fulfilment of you. It's only that ... that--" He broke
off and began over impetuously. "I happened to fall in love
with--Conscience before I met you. Of course, that's quite hopeless now
... but it seems permanent." He was struggling with a diffidence which,
in such circumstances, a man must have been very callous to have
escaped. On the lips of his characters, in fiction, words flowed with an
ease of dialogue and broke often into epigram. Now they eluded him,
leaving him in confusion. The situation was one for which he found
himself unprepared. "I doubt if I shall ever feel otherwise--about her,"
he went on somewhat flounderingly. "You and she are women of almost
opposite types in a way and yet--yet I've been realizing while you
talked, that in many respects you are alike."

Marian's lips twisted themselves into a smile, stiff with tension of
s