can you ask me to be so false to myself and to
Archie----"

"And to Jock and Hurry?" asked Schuyler gently.

She showed no emotion at the mention of these names.

"Don't they count for anything?" persisted Schuyler.

"Of course they count for something, so does poor John. Do you think
it's any pleasure to have hurt him so? But is it my fault if they
don't count _enough_?"

Here she came swiftly to my side, and slid her hand under my arm and
clung to it. "They count," she said, "but they don't count enough."
And she turned to me. "You are all that counts. I'd give up my life
for you, and I'd give up my children and everything. You know that."

[Illustration: "'You are all that counts . . . you know that.'"]

There was a long silence. Then Schuyler, speaking very slowly, said:
"You'd go away with him, and never see Jock and Hurry again, not be
able to go to them when they were sick, not to be at little Hurry's
wedding when she grows up and gets married. . . . For God's sake!"

"_Now_ do you realize that I'm in earnest?" she cried.

Schuyler turned quietly on his heel and left the room. After a while
we heard his voice in the distance, mingling joyfully with the voices
of Jock and Hurry.

Lucy's face, all tears now, was pressed to my breast.

"You are giving up too much for me, my darling," I said; "I'm not worth
it."

"But if you went out of my life I'd die!"

"I won't go out of your life, Lucy. But there are lives and lives. We
could meet and be together to gather strength for the times we had to
be apart."

At that she had a renewal of crying, and cried for a long time.

"It isn't right for Jock and Hurry to run any risk of losing you," I
said, "and love--Lucy--love with renunciation is a wonderful thing, and
a strong thing."

"I'm not strong. I don't want to be strong. I just want to give and
give and give."

"We could have our own life apart from everybody else--but not a hidden
guilty life--a life to be proud of--a life in which you would
strengthen me for my other life and I would strengthen you for yours."

She stopped crying all at once and freed herself from my arms. "Then
you don't want me?"

"I want you."

She lifted her hands to my shoulders. "Suppose we find that we can't
stand a life of love--with renunciation?"

"At least we would have tried to do what seemed to make for the
happiness of the most people."

"And you think I ought to live on with John, as--as his w