e, I am proud. I am grateful. And the obstacle--"

Everett laughed scornfully.

"There is no obstacle."

Monica shook her head. Unafraid, she looked into his eyes, her own
filled with her love for him.

"Don't make it harder," she said. "My brother is hiding from the law.
What he did I don't know. When it happened I was at the convent, and
he did not send for me until he had reached Amapala. I never asked why
we came, but were I to marry you, with your name and your position,
every one else would ask. And the scandal would follow you; wherever
you went it would follow; it would put an end to your career."

His career, now that Monica urged it as her rival, seemed to Everett
particularly trivial.

"I don't know what your brother did either," he said. "His sins are on
his own head. They're not on yours, nor on mine. I don't judge him;
neither do I intend to let him spoil my happiness. Now that I have
found you I will never let you go."

Sadly Monica shook her head and smiled.

"When you leave here," she said, "for some new post, you won't forget
me, but you'll be grateful that I let you go alone; that I was not a
drag on you. When you go back to your great people and your proud and
beautiful princesses, all this will seem a strange dream, and you will
be glad you are awake--and free."

"The idea of marrying you, Monica," said Everett, "is not new. It did
not occur to me only since we moved out here into the moonlight. Since
I first saw you I've thought of you, and only of you. I've thought of
you with me in every corner of the globe, as my wife, my sweetheart, my
partner, riding through jungles as we ride here, sitting opposite me at
our own table, putting the proud and beautiful princesses at their
ease. And in all places, at all moments, you make all other women
tawdry and absurd. And I don't think you are the most wonderful person
I ever met because I love you, but I love you because you are the most
wonderful person I ever met."

"I am young," said Monica, "but since I began to love you I am very
old. And I see clearly that it cannot be."

"Dear heart," cried Everett, "that is quite morbid. What the devil do
I care what your brother has done! I am not marrying your brother."

For a long time, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her
face buried in her hands, the girl sat silent. It was as though she
were praying. Everett knew it was not of him, but of her brother, she
was t