ible, Miss Savine?"

Helen answered: "I am sorry it is so--but why should I pain you? Can
you not take my answer without the reasons?"

"No; not if you will give them," persisted Geoffrey. "I have grown
accustomed to unpleasant things, and it is to be hoped there is truth
in the belief that they are good for one. The truth from your lips
would hurt me less. Will you not tell me?"

"I will try if you demand it." Helen, who could not help noticing how
unflinchingly he had received what was really a needlessly cold rebuff,
hoped she was lucid as she began:

"I have a respect for you, Mr. Thurston, but--how shall I express
it?--also a shrinking. You--please remember, you insisted--seem so
hard and overbearing, and while power is a desirable attribute in a
man---- But will you force me to go on?"

"I beg you to go on," said Geoffrey, with a certain grimness.

"In spite of a popular fallacy, I could not esteem a--a husband I was
afraid of. A man should be gentle, pitiful and considerate to all
women. Without mutual forbearance there could be no true
companionship--and----"

"You are right." Geoffrey's voice was humble without bitterness. "I
have lived a hard life, and perhaps it has made me, compared with your
standard, brutal. Still, I would ask again, are these all your
reasons? Is the other difference between us too great--the distance
dividing the man you gave the dollar to from the daughter of Julius
Savine?"

"No," answered Helen. "That difference is, after all, imaginary. We
do not think over here quite as you do in England, and if we did, are
you not a Thurston of Crosbie? But please believe that I am sorry,
and--you insisted on the explanation--forgive me if I have said too
much. There is a long future before you--and men change their minds."

Geoffrey's face darkened, and Helen, who regretted the last hasty words
which escaped her without reflection, watched him intently until he
said:

"Musker must have told you about something in my life. But I was not
inconstant though the fault was doubtless mine. That is a story which
cannot be mentioned again, Miss Savine."

"I had never meant to refer to it," Helen apologized with some
confusion, "but since you have mistaken me, I must add that another
friend of yours--a lady--gave me a version that bore truth stamped upon
the face of it. One could imagine that you would not take kindly to
the fate others arranged for you. But how do you kno