hing just born, utterly forgetting his mother's
predictions before he came East. Then as the first effervescence died,
a more gloomy view of the situation came uppermost. To his heated
imagination the deadlock seemed complete. Carroll's devotion to what she
considered her duty appeared unbreakable. In the reaction Orde doubted
whether he would have it otherwise. And then his fighting blood surged
back to his heart. All the eloquence, the arguments, the pleadings he
should have commanded earlier in the evening hurried belated to their
posts. After the manner of the young and imaginative when in the
white fire of emotion, he began dramatising scenes between Carroll and
himself. He saw them plainly. He heard the sound of his own voice as
he rehearsed the arguments which should break her resolution. A woman's
duty to her own soul; her obligation toward the man she could make or
mar by her love; her self-respect; the necessity of a break some time;
the advantage of having the crisis over with now rather than later; a
belief in the ultimate good even to Mrs. Bishop of throwing that
lady more on her own resources; and so forth and so on down a list of
arguments obvious enough or trivial enough, but all inspired by the soul
of fervour, all ennobled by the spirit of truth that lies back of the
major premise that a woman should cleave to a man, forsaking all others.
Orde sat back in his chair, his eyes vacant, his pen all but falling
from his hand. He did not finish the letter to his mother. After a while
he went upstairs to his own room.

The fever of the argument coursed through his veins all that long night.
Over and over again he rehearsed it in wearisome repetition until it had
assumed a certain and almost invariable form. And when he had reached
the end of his pleading he began it over again, until the daylight found
him weary and fevered. He arose and dressed himself. He could eat no
breakfast. By a tremendous effort of the will he restrained himself from
going over to Ninth Street until the middle of the morning.

He entered the drawing-room to find her seated at the piano. His heart
bounded, and for an instant he stood still, summoning his forces to the
struggle for which he had so painfully gathered his ammunition. She did
not look up as he approached until he stood almost at her shoulder. Then
she turned to him and held out both her hands.

"It is no use, Jack," she said. "I care for you too much. I will marry
you wh