rds. Ah, don't start; that is the
way we expatriates are educated--no, not that; but these are the
lessons we absorb. And so--" she was looking at Armitage with a hard
face, "so the things that impressed you so terribly--I appreciate and
thank you for your motives in speaking of them--do not appear so awful
to me."

Jack, his clean mind in a whirl, was looking at her aghast.

"You--you--Anne Wellington! You don't mean that!"

She flung her hands from her.

"Thank you," she said. "Don't I? Oh, I hate it all!" she cried
wildly, "the cross purposings of life; the constant groping--being
unable to see clearly--the triumph of lower over higher things--I hate
them all. Ah," she turned to Jack pitifully, "promise me for life, in
this place of peace, the rest and purity and beauty and love of all
this--promise, and I shall stay here now with you, from this minute and
never leave it, though Pyramus or King Midas, as you please, beckon
from beyond this mossy wall."

"Are you speaking metaphorically?" Jack's voice quivered. "For if you
are, I--"

She interrupted, laughing mirthlessly.

"I do not know how I was speaking. Don't bother. I am not worth it.
I might have been had I met you sooner--Jack Armitage. For I have
learned of you--some things. Don't," she raised her hand as Jack bent
forward to speak. "You must n't bother, really. Last night I lived
with you a big, clean, thrilling experience and saw strong men doing
men's work in the raw, cold, salt air--and I saw a new life. And
then--" she was looking straight ahead--"then I was led into a morass
where the air was heavy like the tropics, and things all strange,
unreal. And why--why now the doubt which of the two I had rather
believe to-night. You were too late. I bade you come to us. I am
glad, I am proud that I did--for now I know the reason. But--" she
smiled wanly at him, "it should have been sooner."

"Is--it--too late?" Jack's mouth was shut tight, the muscles bulging
on either side of his jaw.

"Is it? You--I must wait and see. I--I dreamed last night and it was
of the sea, men rushing aboard a black battleship, rising and falling
on great inky waves. It was good--so good--to dream that; not the
other. Wait. . . . It is to be lived out. I am weak. . . . But
there is a tide in the affairs of men--and women. Perhaps you--"

She stopped abruptly.

"Let us drive out of here, Mr. Armitage. Here, in this pure, wonderful
place I fe