Kind friends would
soon enlighten him, and then he would despise her the more. A man of
such broad experience was not to be hoodwinked so easily. No, it was
folly to beat about the bush. At one time she might have seized the
happiness he held out to her, but now it was too late.

"What is it?" he persisted. "Do you mean that man Brockton? Is he the
obstacle?"

"He is one of them," she answered firmly. She was astonished at her own
self-possession, but there was a quiver in her voice as she went on:
"My life has been different to what you perhaps think. I am not
altogether to blame, although I have no excuses to offer. You
understand now?"

She half expected an explosion of wrath, but none came. Instead, he
said calmly:

"I know all about your past life. I've known everything from the first:
how you went to San Francisco as a kid and got into the show business,
and how you went wrong, and then how you married--still a kid--and how
your husband didn't treat you exactly right, and then how, in a fit of
frenzied drunkenness he came home and shot himself."

The girl leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. A low moan
escaped her lips. Madison touched her gently on the shoulder.

"But that's all past now," he went on. "We can forget that. I know how
you were up against it, after that; how hard it was for you to get
along. Then, finally, how you've lived, and--and that you and that man
Brockton have been--well--never mind. I know all this, and still I ask
you to marry me. What is past makes no difference. I don't care what
you have been but only what you are. If you think you care enough for
me to leave this man and begin life anew with me, I'll marry you. I may
not be able to give you all the luxuries his money provided, but at
least, as my wife, you'll be able to lift your head up in the world. I
don't profess to be a saint myself. I'm no better and no worse than the
next man, and I'm not unreasonable enough to expect too much in a woman
who has had to make her own way in the world--especially on the stage.
There's some good in you, yet, Laura; I believe in you. Something tells
me that you'll make good if only given half a chance, and that chance I
hold out to you now. Break away from this rotten life you've been
leading. It can end only in one way. You're young now, and you're
beautiful, and it doesn't seem to matter, but some day your youth and
beauty will be gone, and what then? Quit now, while there's stil