e North of
England," she attempted. "It's too silly--I won't go on."

"We were there together?" he pressed her.

"No. I was alone." She seemed to be disappointing the desire of a child.
His face fell.

"You're always alone there?"

"I can't explain." She could not explain that she was essentially
alone there. "It's not a mountain in the North of England. It's an
imagination--a story one tells oneself. You have yours too?"

"You're with me in mine. You're the thing I make up, you see."

"Oh, I see," she sighed. "That's why it's so impossible." She turned
upon him almost fiercely. "You must try to stop it," she said.

"I won't," he replied roughly, "because I--" He stopped. He realized
that the moment had come to impart that news of the utmost importance
which he had tried to impart to Mary Datchet, to Rodney upon the
Embankment, to the drunken tramp upon the seat. How should he offer it
to Katharine? He looked quickly at her. He saw that she was only half
attentive to him; only a section of her was exposed to him. The sight
roused in him such desperation that he had much ado to control his
impulse to rise and leave the house. Her hand lay loosely curled upon
the table. He seized it and grasped it firmly as if to make sure of her
existence and of his own. "Because I love you, Katharine," he said.

Some roundness or warmth essential to that statement was absent from
his voice, and she had merely to shake her head very slightly for him
to drop her hand and turn away in shame at his own impotence. He thought
that she had detected his wish to leave her. She had discerned the break
in his resolution, the blankness in the heart of his vision. It was true
that he had been happier out in the street, thinking of her, than now
that he was in the same room with her. He looked at her with a guilty
expression on his face. But her look expressed neither disappointment
nor reproach. Her pose was easy, and she seemed to give effect to a mood
of quiet speculation by the spinning of her ruby ring upon the polished
table. Denham forgot his despair in wondering what thoughts now occupied
her.

"You don't believe me?" he said. His tone was humble, and made her smile
at him.

"As far as I understand you--but what should you advise me to do with
this ring?" she asked, holding it out.

"I should advise you to let me keep it for you," he replied, in the same
tone of half-humorous gravity.

"After what you've said, I can hardly trus