eve--right up to the last--he hoped he would hear something of you.
But you know him, his damnable pride,--or was it chivalry this time? On
my soul, I scarcely know which. He behaved almost as if he were under an
oath not to make the first advance. I am very sorry, Avery. But my hands
were tied."

He paused, and she knew that he was waiting for a word from her--of
kindness or reproach--some intimation of her feelings towards himself.
But she could only utter voicelessly, "I shall never see him again."

He pressed her icy hands close in his own, but he said no word of hope.
He seemed to know instinctively that it was not the moment.

"You can write to him," he said. "You can write now--tonight. The letter
will reach him in a few days at most. He calls himself Beverley--Private
Beverley. Let me give you some tea, and you can sit down and write
straight away."

Kindly and practical, he offered her the consolation of immediate action;
and the crushing sense of loss began gradually to lose its hold upon her.

"I am going to tell you everything--all I know," he said. "I told him I
should do so if you came to me. I only wish you had come a little sooner,
but that is beside the point."

Again he paused. Her eyes were upon him, but she said nothing.

Finding her hold had slackened, he got up, lighted a lamp, and sat down
with its light streaming across his rugged face.

"I don't know what you have been thinking of me all this time," he said,
"if you have stooped to think of me at all."

"I have often thought of you," Avery answered. "But I had a feeling that
you--that you--" she hesitated--"that you could scarcely be in sympathy
with us both," she ended.

"I see." Crowther's eyes met hers with absolute directness. "But you
realize that that was a mistake," he said.

She answered him in the affirmative. Before those straight eyes of his
she could not do otherwise.

"I could not express my sympathy with you," he said. "I did not even
know that it would be welcome, and I could not interfere without your
husband's consent. I was bound by a promise. But--" he smiled faintly--"I
told him clearly that if you came to me I should not keep that promise. I
should regard it as my release."

"What have you to tell me?" Avery asked.

"Just this," he said. "It isn't a very long story, but I don't think you
have heard it before. It's just the story of one of the worst bits of bad
luck that ever befell a man. He was only a lad of