woman for me--and that ought at least to speak for
me. There's been no other man for you. So why not end it? The world's
been cruel enough for you as it is. I'll not say it hasn't been cruel to
me, too. I've sat tight and eaten my heart. I've had to fight, too. But
don't I understand you, your fight, what it means to buck a game where
all the cards are stacked? Don't I know?"

"It has been cruel, yes," said she at length, finding herself able to
speak, "but it seems it has not been quite so cruel as it could be
until--until now."

"Why, what do you mean? Am I cruel? Why?"

"You said--you said something about my being a widow."

He nodded. "Yes. I pick you up now--it's as though I find you new--I
know you now at a later stage altogether in your life. You've grown. I
see you as new and fresh as though you were just risen from the sea....
And all the past is nothing to me."

"You must not talk," said she, "because it only is to make us both the
more unhappy. You are quixotic enough, or great enough--I don't know
which--I can't tell which it is--to say you'd take the shame on your own
shoulders in order to take it off of mine! You can't mean that! No! no!
One life ruined is enough--you've ruined yours enough now, today, by
what you've done for Don and me."

He seemed not to hear her.

"I've watched you all these years, and you've lived like a recluse, like
a widow. I can't reproach you. God! Which of us may first cast a stone?"

Aurora Lane turned to him now a brave face, the same brave face she had
turned to the world all these years.

"Oh," said she, "if only I had learned to lie! Maybe some women could
lie to you. And women get so tired--so awfully tired sometimes--I
couldn't blame them. I might marry you, yes--I believe I could. But I
would never lie to you--I won't lie to you now."

"What are you going to say to me, Aurie?"

"What I'm going to say to all the world! I've never been
married to anyone and can't be now. It would be more horrible to
me than--that other. It's too late. It--it means too much to
me--marriage--marriage--marriage! Don't--don't--you mustn't say some
things to a woman. Oh, if all this had happened twenty years ago, when I
was young, I might have been weak enough to listen to what you say. I
was weak and frightened then--I didn't know how I'd ever get on--all
life was a terror to me. But that was twenty years ago. I've made my
fight now, and I've learned that after a fashion at least