ed man. Cobwebs in my case! Why pretend lies?
No honour is involved that I can discover. I don't love Ruth, and I
think she's incapable of loving me or any one else. She never felt
half the affection I did for her, and mine withered quickly, God
knows! A dash of passion on my part, and lonesomeness and the belief I
should have wealth on her side--there's the salad."

Louise leaned forward a little breathlessly.

"And if she believes you're ruined?" she asked.

"She'll hold me if she thinks she can't do better," Lee responded,
bitterly. "I at least beat homesteading."

"Lee!"

Louise had risen. The pallor of her face startled him. Her hands were
fast clenched.

"What is it?" he asked, fearfully.

"I can bear this. To have you love me--love me and go away! It will
break my heart. To stay here alone!"

The words struck his brain as if they were cast in a fierce glare of
light. The suddenness of the knowledge they gave, the revelation they
made, left him speechless. Louise loved him in return. The first
effect upon his mind was to produce a blank incredulity; he stared at
her as if to ascertain whether or not this was in truth she; for
though he well knew he possessed her friendship, he had never
conceived so fantastic a possibility as that of winning her love. Then
a swift exaltation succeeded. He swam in a kind of spiritual ether.

"Louise, Louise, my dear beloved!" he murmured.

He caught her hand, pressed it. She glanced at him without replying,
looked away, back again. Her bosom rose and fell with a slow and
tremulous movement, as though stirring with deep, soundless sighs. A
little smile hovered on her lips, tender, rapturous.

But at length she withdrew her hand, while the soft gladness passed
from her face.

"It cannot be; you must go, Lee," she said.

Bryant remembered--and felt the ice forming about his heart. He
shivered slightly. The full cruelty of the situation was reached. Ruth
Gardner not only held him, but he held her as well by a thread to
which she could cling for safety against the blandishments of
scoundrels, and her own desires, and the dark uncertainty of the
future. And much as he loved Louise Graham, he could not snap that
thread; much as he detested Ruth, he lacked the flintiness of heart to
let her slip into the abyss. Nor would Louise have it otherwise.

She was seeking his eyes, questioning them.

"Well, this hour is worth it all to me," he said, calmly. "All of the
unhappine