fore him,
touched his heart with a compassion beside which his old emotion for her
showed as a small and trivial thing. All that was divine in him awoke
and responded to the horror that looked from her face, and he felt
suddenly that until this instant he had never loved her. Now she was
really his because now she needed him; but for him she would stand
alone, deserted and afraid, in that future to which she had turned with
such pitiable and childlike ignorance. She and the fight were both in
his hands, and he was bracing himself to resist until the end.

"I'll tell you if you wish," he said, "but you mustn't let it give you a
sleepless night."

As they turned a corner an electric light flashed into the darkness of
the carriage lighting up her blonde hair and the sparkling diamonds
which made her blue eyes look dull and lifeless. "It is--is it anything
about money?" she asked with a movement toward him.

"It's about nothing more important than that consummate ass you were
with," he answered, laughing as he reached out and took her hand in his
with a friendly pressure. "I've just found out that he's a blackguard,
and I thought you were too precious to be left an instant longer in his
company. We must be careful, dear," he added. "God knows I'll do my best
to help you--but we must be careful"

"Oh!" she cried out sharply, in a high voice. "Oh!" and she shrank from
him as if he had hurt her by his touch. It was all she said, but the
word quivered in his ears with a suppressed emotion. Was it thankfulness
for her escape? he wondered, or was it anger at the part that he had
played?

PART II

ILLUSION

CHAPTER I

OF PLEASURE AS THE CHIEF END OF MAN

On the morning after his meeting with Adams, Arnold Kemper awoke at
three minutes of nine o'clock, and lay for exactly the three minutes
that were needed to make up the hour watching the hand as it moved on
the face of the bronze clock upon his mantel. The clock, like everything
in his rooms, was costly, a little ornate, and suggestive of an owner
whose intention aimed frankly at the original.

Lying in his large mahogany bedstead, with his body outstretched between
soft yet crisply ironed linen sheets, and his head placed exactly in the
centre of the pillows, he waited, yawning, until the expected hour
should strike. If by an effort of will he could have put back the minute
hand for another quarter of an hour he felt that it would have been
pleasant to