law and the prophets are all on your side, John, but----"

"You'll not answer now, please. You'll think it over. And don't
forget all the pleasant things that you can do in a year. There's that
hunting trip in Somaliland you used to talk about so much--there's
London and Paris--wonderful places for a man who's trying to cure
himself of an unlawful love."

"Trying to _cure_ himself?"

"Of course. Jesting aside, don't you think that what you and Lucy want
to do to Jock and Hurry and me is _wrong_? Of course you do. You're
not a devil. If, by uttering the wish, you could bring it about that
you had never loved Lucy, that she had never fallen out of love with me
and loved you over the heads of her children, that all might be as it
was when you first began to come to our house, wouldn't you utter that
wish? Of course you would."

He was smiling at me now, very gently and cunningly, and there was, at
the same time, in his eyes an awful pathos.

"Why, yes," I said, "I suppose so."

"Just bear out what I've always maintained," said he; "I've always
maintained that you were a good fellow--at heart."

"Am I to see Lucy again--before the year begins?"

"Is it very necessary?"

"I suppose not. But----"

"Well, I imagine Lucy will insist on seeing you. It will be a pity,
but after all she's only a little child in some ways. It's all going
to be very hard for you both, at first," he said gently. "So you shall
see each other again--if she says so."

Suddenly he reached out his hand, and I took it.

"Oh," he said, "I needed your help."

XXX

It seemed to me, at the time, that I had showed myself very weak in the
conference in the taxi-cab. It seemed to me that my acquiescence in
Fulton's proposals reflected on the strength of my love for Lucy.
Perhaps it did. But in the clearer light of today it seems to me that
to his questions I made the only answers possible; and that only a
demented person could have found serious flaws in the logic of his
position.

When we had parted, I walked for a long time in the most crowded
streets, trying to reconcile myself to the long separation from Lucy,
and to the weakness which I thought I had betrayed in agreeing to it.

Could I endure that separation? The world would be empty with no Lucy
to go to, no Lucy even to hear from. I loved her too much to part with
all but the thought of her. It did not seem possible that the mere
passage of time could dull the