easons why--"

He stopped there, and never completed the sentence. She was still looking
into his eyes and was still saying to herself: "I love you." It was as if
a gentle current of electricity played upon every nerve in his body. He
quivered under the touch of something sweet and mysterious. Exaltation was
his response to the magnetic wave that carried her unspoken words into his
heart. She had not uttered a sound and yet he heard the words. How many
times had she cried those delicious words into his ear while he held her
close in his arms? How many times had she looked at him like this while
actually speaking the words aloud in answer to his appeal?

They were standing but a few feet apart. He could take a step forward and
she would be in his arms,--that glorious, adorable, ineffably feminine
creation,--in his arms,--in his arms,--

It was she who broke the spell. Her voice sounded far off--and exhausted,
as if it came from her lips without breath behind it.

"It will always be just the same, Braden," she said, and he knew that it
was an acknowledgment of his unfinished reminder. She was promising him
something.

He took a firm grip on himself. "I'm glad that you see things as they are,
Anne. Now, I must be off. Thanks just the same for--"

"Oh, don't mention it," she said carelessly. "I'm glad that you see things
too as they are, Braden." She held out her hand. There was no restraint in
her manner. "I'm sorry, Braden. Things might have been so different. I'm
sorry."

"Good God!" he burst out. "If you had only been--" He broke off, resolutely
compressing his lips. His jaw was set again in the strong old way that she
knew so well.

She nodded her head slowly. "If I had only been some one else instead of
myself," she said, "it would not have happened."

He turned toward the door, stopped short and then turned to face her.
There was a strange expression in his grey eyes, not unlike diffidence.

"Percy told me last night that you have refused to marry him. I'm glad
that you did that, Anne. I want you to know that I am glad, that I
felt--oh, I cannot tell you how I felt when he told me."

She eyed him closely for a moment. "You thought that I--I might have
accepted him. Is that it?"

"I--I hadn't thought of it at all," he said, confusedly.

"Well," she said, and a slight pallor began to reveal itself in her face,
"I tried marrying for money once, Braden. The next time I shall try
marrying for love."

He s