od on the firing lines as he had said.

"But you told me,--" she began.

"I told you nothing, if you will remember. I only said that, if
you could feel as I did, I'd let the heavens fold as a scroll
before I'd ask a word about your past. I'd begin all the world all
over again, right here. So far as I am concerned, I wouldn't even
care about the law. But you're not so lawless as I am. And
somehow, I've got to thinking--a little--of your side of things."

"The law does not prevent me from doing as I like," she replied.
It was agony that showed on his face at this.

"That demands as much from me, if I play fair with you," he said
slowly. "Suppose there was some sort of law that held me back?"

"I have not observed any vast restraint in you!"

"Not at first. Haven't you gained any better opinion?"

She was one of those able to meet a question with silence. He was
obliged to continue.

"Suppose I should tell you that, all the time I was talking to you
about what I felt, there was a wall, a great wall, for ever between
us?"

"In that case, I should regret God had made a man so forgetful of
honor. I should be glad Heaven had left me untouched by anything
such a man could say. Suppose that?--Why, suppose I had cared, and
that I had found after all that there was no hope? There comes in
conscience, Sir, there comes in honor."

"Then, in such case--"

"In such case any woman would hate a man. Stress may win some
women, but deceit never did."

"I have not deceived you."

"Do you wish to do so now?"

"No. It's just the contrary. Haven't I said you must go? But
since you must go, and since I must pay, I'm willing, if you wish,
to bare my life to the very bone, to the heart before you,
now--right now."

She pondered for a moment. "Of course, I knew there was something.
There, in that room--in that wardrobe--those were her garments--of
another--another woman. Who?"

"Wait, now. Go slow, because I'm suffering. Listen. I'll not
hear a word about your own life--I want no secret of you. I'm
content. But I'm willing now, I say, to tell you all about
that--about those things.

"I didn't do that at first, but how could I? There wasn't any
chance. Besides, when I saw you, the rest of the world, the rest
of my life, it was all, all wiped out of my mind, as though some
drug had done it. You came, you were so sweet, my lack was so
horrible, that I took you into my soul, a drug, a balm, an
influen