ove. Through it all I loved you just the same. And now I'm
with you, it seems, oh, so much more!... Your last letter hurt me. I
don't know just how. But I came West to see you--to tell you this--and
to ask you.... Do you want this ring back?"

"Certainly not," he replied, forcibly, with a dark flush spreading over
his face.

"Then--you love me?" she whispered.

"Yes--I love you," he returned, deliberately. "And in spite of all you
say--very probably more than you love me.... But you, like all women,
make love and its expression the sole object of life. Carley, I have
been concerned with keeping my body from the grave and my soul from
hell."

"But--dear--you're well now?" she returned, with trembling lips.

"Yes, I've almost pulled out."

"Then what is wrong?"

"Wrong?--With me or you," he queried, with keen, enigmatical glance upon
her.

"What is wrong between us? There is something."

"Carley, a man who has been on the verge--as I have been--seldom or
never comes back to happiness. But perhaps--"

"You frighten me," cried Carley, and, rising, she sat upon the arm of
his chair and encircled his neck with her arms. "How can I help if I do
not understand? Am I so miserably little?... Glenn, must I tell you? No
woman can live without love. I need to be loved. That's all that's wrong
with me."

"Carley, you are still an imperious, mushy girl," replied Glenn, taking
her into his arms. "I need to be loved, too. But that's not what is
wrong with me. You'll have to find it out yourself."

"You're a dear old Sphinx," she retorted.

"Listen, Carley," he said, earnestly. "About this love-making stuff.
Please don't misunderstand me. I love you. I'm starved for your kisses.
But--is it right to ask them?"

"Right! Aren't we engaged? And don't I want to give them?"

"If I were only sure we'd be married!" he said, in low, tense voice, as
if speaking more to himself.

"Married!" cried Carley, convulsively clasping him. "Of course we'll be
married. Glenn, you wouldn't jilt me?"

"Carley, what I mean is that you might never really marry me," he
answered, seriously.

"Oh, if that's all you need be sure of, Glenn Kilbourne, you may begin
to make love to me now."

It was late when Carley went up to her room. And she was in such a
softened mood, so happy and excited and yet disturbed in mind, that the
coldness and the darkness did not matter in the least. She undressed
in pitchy blackness, stumbling over chair and