ercy Wintermill. He began on that night
to hate Wintermill. The scion of the Wintermill family sat next to Anne
and there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had resigned
himself to defeat in the lists.

If Anne saw him she did not betray the fact. He waited outside for a
fairer glimpse of her as she left the theatre. What he saw at close range
from his carefully chosen position was not calculated to relieve his mind.
She appeared to be quite happy. There was nothing in her appearance or in
her manner to indicate that she suffered,--and he _wanted_ her to suffer as
he was suffering. That night he did not close his eyes.

He had said to her that he would never marry her even though she gave up
the money she had received from his grandfather, and she had said--how well
he remembered!--that if George was worth thirty thousand dollars to Lutie,
which was her _all_,--he was worth two millions to her, and her _all_. She
was paying for him now, just as Lutie had paid for George, only in Lutie's
case there was the assurance that the sacrifice would bring its own
consolation and reward. Anne was going ahead blindly, trusting to an
uncertainty. She had his word for it that the sacrifice would bring no
reward through him, and yet she persisted in the vain enterprise. She had
likened herself, in a sense, to Lutie, and now he was beginning to think
of himself as he had once thought of George Tresslyn!

He recalled his pitying scorn for the big, once useless boy during that
long period of dog-like watchfulness over the comings and goings of the
girl he loved. He had felt sorry for him and yet pleased with him. There
was something admirable in the stubborn, drunken loyalty of George
Tresslyn,--a loyalty that never wavered even though there was no such thing
as hope ahead of him.

As time went on, Thorpe, the sound, sober, indomitable Thorpe,--began to
encourage himself with the thought that he too might sink to the
extremities through which George had passed,--and be as simple and as firm
in his weakness as the other had been! He too might stand in dark places
and watch, he too might slink behind like a thing in the night. Only in
his case the conditions would be reversed. He would be fighting conviction
and not hope, for he knew he had but to walk into Anne's presence and
speak,--and the suspense would be over. She was waiting for him. It was he
who would have to surrender, not she.

He fought desperately with himself;