the
frightful defencelessness of her position at last. It went to my heart.
It moved me so profoundly that I could think of nothing adequate to
reply, and she stared into my eyes in the gathering evening twilight,
her own eyes extremely bright and feverish, like distant storm signals.

"'Why torture yourself like this?' I asked at length. 'I happen to be
that very common person, a man without ties.'

"'I'm not sure that that would be a recommendation to most girls,' she
reflected, audibly, 'because they think people without ties aren't
likely to contract any. But that isn't what I meant. When I was on the
_Manola_, coming out to Ipsilon, I got it fixed in my head you were a
widower. You know,' she went on, 'you never did talk about yourself,
always about me; and I wondered and wondered and finally decided that
you'd had a loss and didn't want to talk about it. And that made me
sorry for you. And then you remember, up on the cliff you made me
promise to let you help me, and you seemed so _experienced_ ... well,
when I was at that school you know, and we used to talk in the
dormitory about the sort of men we wanted to marry, I used to say--'a
widower, because.' And once a big lump of a girl who was always passing
exams said: 'you mean because he has lived with a woman before,' and I
said, 'a man didn't have to be married for that.' It got to the
mistresses' ears and I was nearly expelled.'

"She stopped, and I said 'Go on!'

"'Oh, I'll go on,' she said with a laugh, looking up at Pollyni, who was
sitting beside the driver and explaining something involving a great
deal of gesture. 'I can't say I was ever happy at school, but at any
rate I must have done pretty well, because I was always sorry to go
away.'

"'And where did you go?' I enquired.

"'Sometimes my father had a house at the seaside, sometimes in the
country. He would have a yacht, with a party of people who were all
paying guests, of course. Or he would take a moor and have people down.
And again he would have a place in London.'

"'But do you mean to say your father fetched you home to spend your
holidays among strangers?' I asked. 'I don't quite understand your
father's attitude toward you.'

"'I wish I knew myself,' she muttered, looking at her foot. 'You know,'
she went on, 'we have always kept up a sort of arrangement in which he
can't live without me and I am a passionately devoted daughter. I
wouldn't tell any one else this,' she interpolated h