of honor to step in between
her and the cruel pathos of her lot.

It was a curious reflection that it was the very fact that he did love
her which held him back. Could he have turned toward Paradise and said
to the sweet soul waiting for him there, "This woman has need of me, but
you alone reign in my heart," he would have felt more free to act. But
the time when that would have been possible had gone by. Anything he
might do now would be less for her need than his own; and his own he
could endure if loyalty to his past demanded it. None the less was it
necessary to find a way in which to come to Diane's immediate relief;
and by the time he had finished his cigar he thought he had discovered
it.

"Having been obliged to run up to town," he explained, when she had
received him in the little hotel parlor, "I've dropped in to tell you
that I'm going away for a few weeks into Canada."

"Isn't it rather hot weather for travelling?" she asked, with that
clear, smiling gaze which showed him at once that she had seen through
his pretext for coming.

"It won't be hot where I'm going--up into the valley of the Metapedia."

"It's rather a sudden decision, isn't it?"

"N--no. I generally try to get a little sport some time during the
year."

"Naturally you know your own intentions best. I only happen to remember
that you said, yesterday morning, you hoped not to leave Rhinefields
till the middle of next month."

"Did I say that? I must have been dreaming?"

"Very likely you were. Or perhaps you're dreaming now."

"Not at all; in fact, I'm particularly wide awake. I see things so
clearly that I've looked in to tell you some of them. You must get out
of this stifling hole and go back to Rhinefields at once."

"I don't like that way of speaking of a place I've become attached to.
It isn't a stifling hole; it's a clean little inn, where the service is
the very law of kindness. The art may be of a period somewhat earlier
than the primitive," she laughed, looking round at the highly colored
chromos of lake and mountain scenery hanging on the walls, "and the
furniture may not be strictly in the style of Louis Quinze, but the host
and hostess treat me as a daughter, and every garcon is my slave."

"I can quite understand that; but all the same it's no fit place for
you."

"I suppose the fittest place for any one is the place in which he feels
at home."

"Don't say that," he begged, with sudden emotion in his voice.

"I