The realization of his crime was already weighing his soul like a
piece of lead, yet out of that soul had come the cry, "I want you--I
want you!" and it still beat with the voice of that immeasurable
yearning even as his lips grew tight and he saw himself the monstrous
fraud he was. This strange little, wonderful creature had come to him
from out of a dead world, and her lips, and her arms, and the soft
caress of her hands had sent his own world reeling about his head so
swiftly that he had been drawn into a maelstrom to which he could find
no bottom. Before McDowell she had claimed him. And before McDowell he
had accepted her. He had lived the great lie as he had strengthened
himself to live it, but success was no longer a triumph. There rushed
into his brain like a consuming flame the desire to confess the truth,
to tell this girl whose arms were about him that he was not Derwent
Conniston, her brother, but John Keith, the murderer. Something drove
it back, something that was still more potent, more demanding, the
overwhelming urge of that fighting force in every man which calls for
self-preservation.

Slowly he drew himself away from her, knowing that for this night at
least his back was to the wall. She was smiling at him from out of the
big chair, and in spite of himself he smiled back at her.

"I must send you to bed now, Mary Josephine, and tomorrow we will talk
everything over," he said. "You're so tired you're ready to fall asleep
in a minute."

Tiny, puckery lines came into her pretty forehead. It was a trick he
loved at first sight.

"Do you know, Derry, I almost believe you've changed a lot. You used to
call me 'Juddy.' But now that I'm grown up, I think I like Mary
Josephine better, though you oughtn't to be quite so stiff about it.
Derry, tell me honest--are you AFRAID of me?"

"Afraid of you!"

"Yes, because I'm grown up. Don't you like me as well as you did one,
two, three, seven years ago? If you did, you wouldn't tell me to go to
bed just a few minutes after you've seen me for the first time in all
those--those--Derry, I'm going to cry! I AM!"

"Don't," he pleaded. "Please don't!"

He felt like a hundred-horned bull in a very small china shop. Mary
Josephine herself saved the day for him by jumping suddenly from the
big chair, forcing him into it, and snuggling herself on his knees.

"There!" She looked at a tiny watch on her wrist. "We're going to bed
in two hours. We've got a lot to talk a