that she had saved
her pride at a cost to him she would not contemplate.

After a time she went upstairs and put on the bracelet. And late in the
afternoon she went out and bought some wool, to make an afghan. It eased
her conscience toward Nina. She commenced it that evening while she
waited for Wallie, and she wondered if some time she would be making an
afghan for a coming child of her own. Hers and Wallace Sayre's.

Suddenly she knew she would never marry him. She faced the future, with
all that it implied, and she knew she could not do it. It was horrible
that she had even contemplated it. It would be terrible to tell Wallie,
but not as terrible as the other thing. She saw herself then with the
same clearness with which she had judged Dick. She too, leaving her
havoc of wrecked lives behind her; she too going along her headstrong
way, raising hopes not to be fulfilled, and passing on. She too.

That evening, Christmas eve, she told Wallie she would not marry him.
Told him very gently, and just after an attempt of his to embrace her.
She would not let him do it.

"I don't know what's come over you," he said morosely. "But I'll let you
alone, if that's the way you feel."

"I'm sorry, Wallie. It--it makes me shiver."

In a way he was prepared for it but nevertheless he begged for time,
for a less unequivocal rejection. But he found her, for the first time,
impatient with his pleadings.

"I don't want to go over and over it, Wallie. I'll take the blame. I
should have done it long ago."

She was gentle, almost tender with him, but when he said she had spoiled
his life for him she smiled faintly.

"You think that now. And don't believe I'm not sorry. I am. I hate not
playing the game, as you say. But I don't think for a moment that you'll
go on caring when you know I don't. That doesn't happen. That's all."

"Do you know what I think?" he burst out. "I think you're still mad
about Livingstone. I think you are so mad about him that you don't know
it yourself."

But she only smiled her cool smile and went on with her knitting. After
that he got himself in hand, and--perhaps he still had some hope. It
was certain that she had not flinched at Dick's name--told her very
earnestly that he only wanted her happiness. He didn't want her unless
she wanted him. He would always love her.

"Not always," she said, with tragically cold certainty. "Men are not
like women; they forget."

She wondered, after he had gone,