ng broad humanity, understand and forgive his actions even when he
felt ashamed of them as unworthy and discreditable. No comedy of
sentiment here--no playing of the saint on either side; but a noble
simplicity, a serene good faith, a spontaneous self-revelation!

He recounted to her, as naturally as everything else, the whole history
of his acquaintanceship with the Robinsons. He spared himself not a
detail: how he had first dallied with temptation, his moment of panic,
his specious reasoning, his ignoble surrender! He laid himself bare as
with a scalpel. Yet of Alice he spoke always with reverence and loyalty,
dwelling on her devotion, on the little she needed from him to give her
happiness. And Lady Betty caught his appreciation of her. "I seem to
know and understand her well," she said. "She is a delicate, untarnished
soul. She seems more real to me than people who have lived near me all
my life. And so her heart has gone out to me! I feel I could never bear
to meet her--the moment would be too terrible! Ah, why did you not speak
in the old days?"

"I repeat I had not the right. And then I did not dream I was worth one
single thought of yours."

"I gave you all my thoughts. You were so serious. You sat with knitted
brow, sternly in your work, and I hardly dared to come near you. You
seemed remote from women; grimly devoted to your purpose--to triumph or
to die! At poor me you scarcely deigned to look. And then you
disappeared, and I knew you would not return."

"I disappeared. I left happiness behind me, and retired into my living
tomb."

"My heart bleeds for you." There was a pause. Her eyes were full of
pain. But presently she broke the silence, as if discovering some crumb
of comfort. "This time at least you will not be going to privation."

"In my heart of hearts privation is preferable."

"Ah, no. Remember it is the call of duty. It is the sacrifice we must
make for Alice's sake. She is a good woman. Her life must not be
broken."

"I promise I shall try to make her happy--whatever the cost. But think
how happy we should have been together, you and I, darling."

"We should have been happy together," she said in a low voice. "It
would have been a perfect union. But I say again that life is a
compromise. Our demands are great; we have to accept the little that is
granted."

"Yet the door still stands open," he mused. "We may yet take our fate
into our own hands."

"The door stands open, but we turn o