m away and sat down on the ingeniously uncomfortable
sofa with him.

"Fighting again, are they? Poor old dears, it really is quite dreadful.
You see, grandfather used to be a fearful tyrant, though he is so
little, and grandmother was deathly afraid of him until his health began
to fail. So now she is getting even with him. They adore each other,
however. Isn't the house quaint? Have you seen the garden?"

She shook her head. "No, show it to me."

Leaving the room they crossed to the oilclothed passage and went into
the dining-room, a small apartment enlivened by an oleograph of Leo
XIII., and some gay chromos.

The windows opened to the ground, and opening one the young people went
out into the moonlight. Brigit was feeling very happy, and therefore
very kind. When Theo put his arm round her and drew her to him she did
not protest.

"Brigitte," he whispered, "I do so love you."

"Dear Theo----" Suddenly she remembered that other moonlight night, nearly
a year before, when she had accepted him. She recalled the look of the
beautiful old house, the sound of Tommy at the pianola, the splashing of
the fountain, the sun-dial at which, in his boyish grief, he had knelt.

And she had accepted his love, not because she loved him but because she
hated her home and because, besides being sufficiently rich to satisfy
her needs, he was nice and straight and kind. She had taken everything
he had, and what had she given him? Nothing.

In the moonlight she saw as if with new eyes that he had changed. The
young contours of his cheek were less round, his eyes had a deeper
expression. He had suffered, and he had not complained.

"Theo," she said suddenly, smitten with pity, "I--have been horrid to
you. I--I am so frightfully selfish. Will you forgive me?"

His eyes glistened as he looked at her.

"Forgive you? You angel!"

"No, no. I _have_ been horrid. But--I will be nicer. And--you are so
good to me."

He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly:

"Brigitte--you are never horrid. But--if you do not--care for me at
all--will you tell me now?"

She was abashed and then shivered. Here was the chance she had longed
for. He would, she knew, give her up without a word if she asked him to;
and she had also learned to know that whatever Joyselle might have done
in like case a few months before, he would not refuse to see her now if
she told him that she and Theo had agreed to separate.

Here was freedom to go her own w