ue one. I said I had borrowed from a friend. He was in despair,
and couldn't refuse what I offered."

"We'll talk no more of it. It was right to tell me. I'm glad now it's
all over. Look at the moon rising--harvest moon, isn't it?"

Eve turned aside again, and leaned on the parapet. He, lingering apart
for a moment, at length drew nearer. Of her own accord she put her
hands in his.

"In future," she said, "you shall know everything I do. You can trust
me: there will be no more secrets."

"Yet you are afraid----"

"It's for your sake. You must be free for the next year or two. I shall
be glad to get to work again. I am well and strong and cheerful."

Her eyes drew him with the temptation he had ever yet resisted. Eve did
not refuse her lips.

"You must write to Patty," she said, when they were at the place of
parting. "I shall have her new address in a day or two."

"Yes, I will write to her."

CHAPTER XVIII

By the end of November Hilliard was well at work in the office of
Messrs. Birching, encouraged by his progress and looking forward as
hopefully as a not very sanguine temperament would allow. He lived
penuriously, and toiled at professional study night as well as day. Now
and then he passed an evening with Robert Narramore, who had moved to
cozy bachelor quarters a little distance out of town, in the Halesowen
direction. Once a week, generally on Saturday, he saw Eve. Other
society he had none, nor greatly desired any.

But Eve had as yet found no employment. Good fortune in this respect
seemed to have deserted her, and at her meetings with Hilliard she grew
fretful over repeated disappointments. Of her day-to-day life she made
no complaint, but Hilliard saw too clearly that her spirits were
failing beneath a burden of monotonous dulness. That the healthy glow
she had brought back in her cheeks should give way to pallor was no
more than he had expected, but he watched with anxiety the return of
mental symptoms which he had tried to cheat himself into believing
would not reappear. Eve did not fail in pleasant smiles, in hopeful
words; but they cost her an effort which she lacked the art to conceal.
He felt a coldness in her, divined a struggle between conscience and
inclination. However, for this also he was prepared; all the more need
for vigour and animation on his own part.

Hilliard had read of the woman who, in the strength of her love and
loyalty, heartens a man through all the labours he