p, and he will--"

"Marry us?"

"Yes, Donald." And she hid her face against him, a face that flushed
hotly and excitedly.

He caught her close during a delicious moment, for the storm held
a privacy that was almost impenetrable. Then, with a groan, he
released her.

"Jean," he said earnestly, "I can't do it. I would sell my soul to
marry you to-night--yes, actually sell it to the devil; but, as a
man who pretends to be honorable in his dealings, I can't. Oh, it
simply kills me, this refusal; but the fact of it is that I love
you too much to risk your future happiness."

"Oh, boy, boy!" she cried pitifully. "What can be happiness for me
but the having of you always? If you've done wrong, I want you.
Whatever this awful thing is that is ruining our lives, I don't
cafe. I only know one thing, and that is _I want you!_"

Had he known women as some men know them, Donald would have taken
her tone and her passion as passports to heaven, and hunted up the
fat and spectacled Mr. Gates then and there, and this story would
have ended. But he did not. He was straightforward and unsophisticated
in a manly way, and knew his duty; and he also knew it was not now
that Jean might regret her step, but at that important point of
life Pinero has so aptly named "mid-channel," when the fire of
youth has burned out, and the main concern is with the ashes
remaining.

So, with the perfume of happiness in his nostrils, he put the
temptation from him, and told Jean over and over that she must
believe him to be acting for the best when he laid their lives out
on such lines of misery. And she, after a while, believed, as he
desired, and asked no more. Then, he told her that to know the
things against him would make her still more unhappy, since they
were not of his doing.

"You'll hear many things about me that are not true, and never
could be," Donald said at the last; "but don't believe them. For
I have done nothing wrong. All I ask is your faith and trust in
me. With them, I'll willingly go through the valley of the shadow,
that in the end, some time, somewhere, we may be happy."

"Those you shall have always," was the reply; "and something else,
too, whenever you want it."

"What is that?"

"A wife."

He kissed her full upon the lips, and reluctantly let her go.

Through the storm a faint, muffled report sounded, as though a
rifle had been fired; the two listened intently. But they heard
nothing more, and Donald miserably wa