ave said. You would pity me, but you couldn't
help me. And that would give you pain for nothing. No, it would be
useless."

"It would be useless to talk to me about--loving." She took the word on
her lips with a certain effect of adopting it for convenience' sake in
her vocabulary. "All that was ended for me long ago,--ten years ago. And
my whole life since then has been shaped to do without it. I will tell
you my story if you like. Perhaps it's your due. I wish to be just. You
may have a right to know."

"No, I haven't. But--perhaps I ought to say that Mrs. Maynard told me
something."

"Well, I am glad of that, though she had no right to do it. Then you can
understand."

"Oh, yes, I can understand. I don't pretend that I had any reason in
it."

He forbore again to urge any plea for himself, and once more she was
obliged to interfere in his behalf. "Mr. Libby, I have never confessed
that I once wronged you in a way that I'm very sorry for."

"About Mrs. Maynard? Yes, I know. I won't try to whitewash myself; but
it didn't occur to me how it would look. I wanted to talk with her about
you."

"You ought to have considered her, though," she said gently.

"She ought to have considered herself," he retorted, with his unfailing
bitterness for Mrs. Maynard. "But it doesn't matter whose fault it was.
I'm sufficiently punished; for I know that it injured me with you."

"It did at first. But now I can see that I was wrong. I wished to tell
you that. It isn't creditable to me that I thought you intended to flirt
with her. If I had been better myself"--

"You!" He could not say more.

That utter faith in her was very charming. It softened her more and
more; it made her wish to reason with him, and try gently to show him
how impossible his hope was. "And you know," she said, recurring to
something that had gone before, "that even if I had cared for you in
the way you wish, it could n't be. You would n't want to have people
laughing and saying I had been a doctress."

"I shouldn't have minded. I know how much people's talk is worth."

"Yes," she said, "I know you would be generous and brave about
that--about anything. But what--what if I could n't give up my
career--my hopes of being useful in the way I have planned? You would
n't have liked me to go on practising medicine?"

"I thought of that," he answered simply. "I didn't see how it could
be done. But if you saw any way, I was willing--No, that was my great
trou