My poor friend!" Her eyes gleamed as if tears were about to come.

"I played the game up to a certain point with all my strength, but
everything went against me from every quarter. I know there are men that
would have risen triumphant above all these evils and difficulties. But
I was not one of those men. I was beaten--smashed--utterly and
hopelessly. I had not the smallest reserve of power to carry on the
fight. I lived cut off from the world like a man in a tomb. I am ashamed
to think that I kept myself alive----"

"No, no," she interrupted, shivering. "I can't bear it."

"I am ashamed that I did not die," he persisted. "It is the truth. It is
the first time I say it either to myself or to another. In order to live
I stepped below myself."

She covered her face with her hands. "I know you are misjudging. You are
harsh with yourself. I hold to my faith in you."

"I lived on the earnings of my sister, who stinted herself in food and
went shabbily clad that she might foster my work. Yet, for terrible
months and months, I deceived her. I did no work. My will was dead. As a
man I seemed to collapse physically and morally."

"You were not responsible. There is a limit to human endurance. You
needed a delicious rest in some blue sunny place, in one of those
earthly paradises where the orange-trees are golden in the sun. Your
sister's love consecrated her sacrifice. She saved you for a great
future. Her reward is yet to come."

"You see everything in so sweet a light; I can only hope that the issue
will be as you say. It is on my future work that I have staked the
redemption of my manhood in my own eyes. My work! That is where my real
heart lies. Outside of that my life will be a mere appearance."

"But you have somebody else in your life now," she broke in, pale as
death. "We heard a rumour that you were about to marry. Is it not true?"

He gasped at the bitter reminder. He hung his head. "It is true," he
breathed.

"Then you have given your affections: you are happy?"

He wavered for a deep instant, the whilst her eyes rested on him
gravely. "I have given my affections--I am happy." To himself he added:
"I must be loyal to Alice, if indeed I have not gone too far already.
But Lady Betty has made me see the truth. I understand now what I felt
only obscurely--I bartered my life to the Robinsons, kind as they are,
that I might repair the hurt and wrong to Mary."

"I congratulate you from my heart." She held out he