orge advanced, he thought her
colour was too deep, and he believed she had been crying alone in the
dusk of the room which was scarcely disturbed by one shaded lamp.

He paused and stared at her--no longer Sylvia Planter--Dalrymple's wife.
All at once the appearance of modelled stone left her. Her entire body
seemed in motion, surrendered to a neurotic and undirected energy. She
started forward, paused, drew away. Her eyes turned from him to the
door, then questioningly back again. She pulled at the gloves which she
had kept in her hand. Her voice, when she spoke, was unsteady:

"What do you mean--coming in here--unannounced?"

His eyes held her.

"I've had enough of that," he said, harshly. "All I can think of is the
vile name your husband would have called you once if I hadn't choked him
half to death."

For a second her eyes blazed, then her shoulders drooped, and she
covered her face with her hands. With a sharp regret it occurred to him
that he could throw the broken crop away, for at last he had struck
her--hard enough to hurt.

Her voice from behind her hands was uncertain and muffled.

"Who told you?"

"He did--naturally, that--that----"

He broke off, choking.

"By God, Sylvia! It isn't too late. You've got to understand that. Now.
This minute. I tell you it isn't too late."

She lowered her hands. Her fear was sufficiently visible. Her attempt at
a laugh was pitiful, resembled an escaping grief.

"Leave me alone. You have to leave me alone now."

Her brutal definition of the great wall suddenly raised between them
swept his mind clean of everything except her lips, her beauty,
cloistered with his interminable desire in this dim room.

He stumbled blindly forward to his final chance. With a great,
unthinking, enveloping gesture he flung his arms about her drew her so
close to his body that she couldn't resist; and, before she had time to
cry out, pressed his mouth at last against her lips.

He saw her eyes close, guessed that she didn't attempt to struggle,
experienced an intoxicating fancy she was content to have him fulfill
his boast. He didn't try to measure the enormity of his action. Once
more he was the George Morton who could plunge ahead, casting aside
acquired judgments. Then he felt her shudder. She got her lips away. She
tried to lift her hands. He heard her whisper:

"Let me go."

He stared, fascinated, at her lips, half parted, that had just now told
him he had never really wa