n the dimensions of a twelve-month had added
its measure to Anne's outlook upon life. She had turned a corner in the
lane and was facing the vast plain she would have to cross unguided. She
had come to the place where she must think and act for herself,--and to
that place all men and all women come abruptly, one time or another, to
become units in the multitude.

We do not know when we pass that inevitable spot, nor have we the power to
work backward and decide upon the exact moment when adolescence gave way
to manhood. It comes and passes without our knowledge, and we are given a
new vision in the twinkling of an eye, in a single beat of the heart. No
man knows just when he becomes a man in his own reckoning. It is not a
matter of years, nor growth, nor maturity of body and mind, but an
awakening which goes unrecorded on the mind's scroll. Some men do not note
the change until they are fifty, others when they are fifteen.
Circumstance does the trick.

He was still thinking of Anne as he hurried up the front door-steps and
rang Dr. Bates' bell. She was not the same Anne that he had known and
loved, far back in the days when he was young. Could it be possible that
it was only a year ago? Was Anne so close to the present as all that, and
yet so indefinably remote when it came to analysing this new look in her
eyes? Was it only a year ago that she was so young and so unfound?

A sudden sickness assailed him as he waited for the maid to open the door.
Anne had been made a widow. He, not God, was responsible for this new
phase in her life. Had he not put a dreadful charge upon her conscience?
Had he not forced her to share the responsibility with him? And, while the
rest of the world might forever remain in ignorance, would it ever be
possible for her to hide the truth from herself?

She knew what it all meant, and she had offered to share the consequences
with him, no matter what course his judgment led him to pursue. He had not
considered her until this instant as a partner in the undertaking, but now
he realised that she must certainly be looking upon herself as such. His
heart sank. He had made a hideous mistake. He should not have gone to her.
She could not justify herself by the same means that were open to him.

From her point of view, he had killed her husband, and with her consent!

He found himself treating the dead man in a curiously detached fashion,
and not as his own blood-relation. Her husband, that was th