e is always a way. It's awful.' His voice broke.

'Jack,' she said softly, 'the world's a hard place for women. It takes
from them either hard labour or gratification. I've done my best. For a
whole year I worked. I worked ten hours a day, I've starved almost, I've
swabbed floors. . . .'

He withdrew his hand with a jerk. He could bear that even less than her
confession.

'Then a man came,' she went on relentlessly, 'a good man who offered me
ease, peace, happiness. I was poor, I was ill. What could I do? Then he
died and I was alone. What could I do? Ah, don't believe mine is a bed
of roses, Jack!'

He had turned away, and was looking into the dying fire. His ideals, his
prejudices, all were in the melting pot. Here was the woman who had been
his earliest dream, degraded, irretrievably soiled. Whatever happened he
could not forget; not even love could break down the terrific barrier
which generations of hard and honest men of Rawsley had erected in his
soul between straight women and the others. But she was the dream still:
beautiful, all that his heart desired; such that (and he felt it like an
awful taunt) he could not give her up.

He looked at her, at her sorrowful face. No, he could not let her pass
out of his life. He thought of disjointed things. He could see his
mother's face, the black streets of Rawsley; he thought of the pastor at
Bethlehem denouncing sin. All his standards were jarred. He had nothing
to hold on to while everything seemed to slip: ideals, resolutions,
dreams; nothing remained save the horrible sweetness of the mermaid's
face.

'Let me think,' he said hoarsely, 'let me think.'

Victoria said nothing. He was in hands stronger than hers. He was
fighting his tradition, the blood of the Covenanters, for her sake.
Nothing that she could say would help him; it might impede him. He had
turned away; she could see nothing of his face. Then he looked into her
eyes.

'What was can never be again,' he said, 'what I dreamed can never be.
You were my beacon and my hope. I have only found you to lose you. If I
were to marry you there would always be that between us, the past.'

'Then do not marry me. I do not ask you to.' Her voice went down to a
whisper and she put her hands on his shoulders. 'Let me be another, a
new dream, less golden, but sweet.'

She put her face almost against his, gazing into his eyes. 'Do not leave
this house and I will be everything for you.'

She felt a shudder run t