ferent--with this strange look on you--something which
says so plainly to me that--that--oh, forgive me, but do you know I
seem to see you dying--dying all the time, and now you are so
changed--indeed--oh please understand me--I feel differently toward
you--as I would toward one dying for sympathy and love."

She hid her face again. He felt his face grow hot. He sat perfectly
still, listening. At last she said:

"When I came here to-night and saw it all--empty--I thought: 'This
means I am deserted by all--he has brought me here to see it--to know
it. What can I do but go with him? It is all that is left. Did I make
myself? Did I give myself this fatal beauty--for you say I am
beautiful. And did I make you with your strength--your conquering
strength, and--Oh, could I overcome my environment?' But now--now--it
is different--and if I am lost, Richard Travis--it will be your
fault--yours and God's."

He stroked her hair. He was pale and that strange light which Jud
Carpenter had seen in his eyes that afternoon blazed now with a
nervous flash.

"That is my story," she cried. "It is now too late even for God to
come and tell me through you--now since we--you and I--oh, how can I
say it--you have taken me this way--you, so strong and brave
and--grand--"

He flushed hot with shame. He put his hand gently over her mouth.

"Hush--hush--child--my God--you hurt me--shame me--you know not what
you say."

"I can understand all--but one thing," she went on after a while.
"Why have you brought me to this--here--at night alone with you--to
tell me this--to make me--me--oh, change in my feelings--to you? Oh,
must I say it?" she cried--"tell you the truth--that--that--now since
I see you as you are--I--I,--I am willing to go!"

"Hush, Helen, my child, my God--don't crush me--don't--listen,
child--listen! I am a villain--a doubly-dyed, infamous one--when you
hear"--

She shook her head and put one of her pretty hands over his mouth.

"Let me tell you all, first. Let me finish. After all this, why have
you brought me here to tell me this, when all you had to do was to
keep silent a few more hours--take me on to the station, as you
said--and--and--"

"I will tell you," he said gently. "Yes, you have asked the question
needed to be explained. Now hear from my own lips my infamy--not all
of it, God knows--that would take the night; but this peculiar part
of it. Do you know why I love to stroke your hair, why I love to
touch it