oy the years which remain to
you."

She leaned over and took his hand in hers. Success had been so near that
she could not see it slip away from her now without a supreme effort.
Merry needed such a man as this and Hamlen needed her. Why should these
false ideas, created by years of self-depreciation, stand in the way of
what she knew was best?

"I can't let you destroy the years which remain to you," she repeated
earnestly. "I can't see my child's happiness marred by your foolish
insistence upon ideals which rest on conditions now long since passed
away. Philip, if you loved me once, show it now by your confidence in my
judgment, by your faith in my purpose. Tell me one reason why this
should not be."

"If I loved you once?" he echoed her words with a force which startled
her. "Tell you one reason why this should not be? The one answers the
other, Marian; for that love, intensified by the denial of twenty
years, is now a power I can't withstand."

"Philip!" she cried, striving to release her hand which he held in a
grip which hurt her, "you don't mean that you still--"

"I mean that I have never ceased to love you, Marian. Look at me now and
tell me if you doubt it. Even while I cursed you for ruining my life, I
loved you. Every day of the twenty years I have lived alone I have had
your face before me, I have held out my arms beseeching you to come to
me, I have beaten my head against the wall in despair that the one
longing of my heart could never hope for realization."

"You never told me--I did not know--"

"I have at least been strong enough to keep my secret, Marian; but it is
sacrilege for you to talk to me of marriage to your daughter. Now that
you know the truth you will urge no further. Could anything be more
dishonorable than to offer myself to her when even to-day my love for
you is beating at my heart until I can scarcely contain it? No, no! let
us have an end to all this mockery! In the name of a life's devotion, in
the name of the love you once had for me--"

"Release me, Philip," she entreated, frightened by his tenseness; but he
only tightened his grip upon her hand. She realized the importance of
terminating this impossible situation, regardless of the pain it might
inflict.

"I never loved you, Philip," she said deliberately. "At the time, I
thought I did; but it was my mind and not my heart you dominated."

He dropped her hand as if she had struck him, and, dazed, supported
himself again