deep under deep in
you! I couldn't have staked my life on you, I couldn't have loved you,
if there hadn't been! Say I have only touched the surface yet, but don't
say you are shallow!"

The girl shook her head.

"There isn't enough of me. Do you know," she exclaimed, whimsically,
"that's the Indian on the trail! You'll never feel quite sure of me,
will you?"

Maurice's lips moved. "You are my own!"

She kept him at bay with her eyes, though they filled slowly with tears.

"I ama child of the devil!" exclaimed Lily, with vehemence. "I give
people trouble and make them suffer!"

"She classes me with 'people'!" Maurice thought. He said, "Have I ever
blamed you for anything?"

"No."

"Then don't blame yourself. I will simply take what you can give me.
That is all I could take. Forgive me for loving you too much. I will try
to love you less."

"No," the girl demurred. "I don't want you to do that."

"I am very unreasonable," he said, humbly. "But the rest of the world is
a shadow. You are my one reality. There is nothing in the universe but
you."

She brushed her eyes fiercely. "I mustn't cry. I'll have to explain it
if I do, and the lids will be red all day."

The man felt internally seared, as by burning lava, with the conviction
that he had staked his all late in life on what could never be really
his. She would diffuse herself through many. He was concentrated in her.
His passion had its lips burned shut.

"I am Providence's favorite bag-holder," was his bitter thought. "The
game is never for me."

"Good-bye," said Lily.

"Good-bye," said Maurice.

"Are you coming into the casino to-night?"

"If you will be there."

"I have promised a lot of dances. Good-bye. Go back and work."

"Yes, I must work," said Maurice.

She gave him a defiant, radiant smile, and ran towards the Indian on the
trail. He turned in the opposite direction, and tramped the woods until
nightfall.

At first he mocked himself. "Oh yes, she loves me! I'm glad, at any
rate, that she loves me! There will be enough to moisten my lips with;
and if I thirst for an ocean that is not her fault."

Why had a woman been made who could inspire such passion without
returning it? He reminded himself that she was of a later, a gayer,
lighter, less strenuous generation than his own. Thousands of men had
waded blood for a principle and a lost cause in his day. In hers
the gigantic republic stood up a menace to nations. The struggle for
ex