ast--falling inevitably. He knew
how she would take it; just as she had taken his advances to her on
the 'bus that night. Did he think that of her? Was that all the depth
of their acquaintance! Oh, she loathed him! Therefore, why let it
end that way? Why not with this little mystery in her mind, which
would not prevent their sometimes meeting again, even if she never
came to his rooms?

He stood up from the table, crossed the room to where her hat was
lying and picked it up.

"It's nearly eleven," he said quietly. "You'd better think of getting
home."

She took the hat from him, then the pins. He watched her silently
as she secured it to her head, not even appealing to him if it were
straight. Slowly she drew on her gloves, shivering as her fingers
fitted into the cold skin.

"I'm ready," she said, when all these things were done.

Traill went the round of the candles, blowing them out one by one,
until the scent of the smoking wick was pungent in the air. Before
the last, he stopped.

"You get to the door," he said.

Instead of obeying him, Sally walked firmly across to his side.

"We're not to meet again?" she asked.

"I didn't say that."

"But you will never bring me up to your rooms here again? As far as
that goes, it finishes here?" She did not even stop to wonder at
herself. The fears of losing him were spurs in her side.

"Yes."

"Then if you have any respect for me, you'll tell me why?"

"It's because I have respect for you, I suppose, that I don't tell
you."

She stepped back from him. "Is it anything about me?" she asked,
"or--or about yourself that you cannot tell me?" Then it was that
she feared he had discovered her love for him and loathed her for
the disclosing of her secret.

In this persistent determination of Sally's, Janet would scarcely
have recognized her. But she was driven, the hounds of despair were
at her heels. In such a moment as this, any woman drops the cloak
and stands out, limbs free, to win her own.

"Is it about yourself?" she repeated.

Another suspicion now that he was married--engaged--bound in some
way from which there was no escape--was throbbing, like the
flickering shadow that a candle casts, in a deeply-hidden corner of
her mind. She dared not let it advance, dared not let it become a
palpable fear, yet there it was. And all this time, Traill was looking
at her with steady eyes, behind which the pendulum was once more set
a-swinging.

Should he tell her