three. She caught her breath quickly--Trent could hear its soft
sibilance. Then she spoke.

"Will you marry me, please, Garth?"

He drew back from her, violently, his underlip hard bitten. At last,
after a long silence--

"No!" he burst out harshly. "No! I can't!"

For an instant she was shaken. Then, buoyed up by the memory of that
night when she had lain in his arms and when the agony of the moment had
stripped him of all power to hide his love, she challenged his denial.

"Why not?" Her voice was vibrant. "You love me!"

"Yes . . . I love you." The words seemed torn from him.

"Then why won't you marry me?"

It did not seem to her that she was doing anything unusual or unwomanly.
The man she loved had carried his burden single-handed long enough. The
time had come when for his own sake as well as for hers, she must wring
the truth from him, make him break through the silence which had long
been torturing them both. Whatever might be the outcome, whether pain or
happiness, they must share it.

"Why won't you marry me, Garth?"

The little question, almost voiceless in its intensity, clamoured loudly
at his heart.

"Don't tempt me!" he cried out hoarsely. "My God! I wonder if you know
how you are tempting me?"

She came a little closer to him, laying her hand on his arm, while her
great, sombre eyes silently entreated him.

As though the touch of her were more than he could bear, his hard-held
passion crashed suddenly through the bars his will had set about it.

He caught her in his arms, lifting her sheer off her feet against his
breast, whilst his lips crushed down upon her mouth and throat, burned
against her white, closed lids, and the hard clasp of his arms about
her was a physical pain--an exquisite agony that it was a fierce joy to
suffer.

"Then--then you do love me?" She leaned against him, breathless, her
voice unsteady, her whole slender body shaken with an answering passion.

"Love you?" The grip of his arms about her made response. "Love you?
I love you with my soul and my body, here and through whatever comes
Hereafter. You are my earth and heaven--the whole meaning of things--"
He broke off abruptly, and she felt his arms slacken their hold and
slowly unclasp as though impelled to it by some invisible force.

"What was I saying?" The heat of passion had gone out of his voice,
leaving it suddenly flat and toneless. "'The whole meaning of things?'"
He gave a curious little laugh. It had