rt--even _your_ art, which I might learn to care for. All I
want is to really live and have your troubles to meet and overcome them
because I will not permit anything to harm you.... I will love you
enough for that.... I--do you love other women?"

"Good God, no!"

"And you shall not!" She leaned closer, looking him through and through.
"I _will_ be what you love! I will be what you desire most in all the
world. I _will_ be to you everything you wish, in every way, always,
ever, and forever and ever.... Will you marry me?"

"Will _you_?"

"Yes."

She suddenly stripped off her glove, wrenched a ring set with brilliants
from the third finger of her left hand, and, rising, threw it, straight
as a young boy throws, far out into deepening twilight. It was the end
of Mr. Frawley; he, too, had not only become a by-product but a good-by
product. Yet his modest demands had merely required a tear a year!
Perhaps he had not asked enough. Love pardons the selfish.

She was laughing, a trifle excited, as she turned to face him where he
had risen. But, at the touch of his hand on hers, the laughter died at a
breath, and she stood, her limp hand clasped in his, silent,
expressionless, save for the tremor of her mouth.

"I--I must go," she said, shrinking from him.

He did not understand, thrilled as he was by the contact, but he let her
soft hand fall away from his.

Then with a half sob she caught her own fingers to her lips and kissed
them where the pressure of his hand burned her white flesh--kissed them,
looking at him.

"You--you find a child--you leave a woman," she said unsteadily. "Do you
understand how I love you--for that?"

He caught her in his arms.

"No--not yet--not my mouth!" she pleaded, holding him back; "I love you
too much--already _too_ much. Wait! Oh, _will_ you wait?... And let me
wait--_make_ me wait?... I--I begin to understand some things I did not
know an hour ago."

In the dusk he could scarcely see her as she swayed, yielding, her arms
tightening about his neck in the first kiss she had ever given or
forgiven in all her life.

And through the swimming tumult of their senses the thrush's song rang
like a cry. The moon had risen.

[Illustration]

XVII

[Illustration]

Mounting the deadened stairway noiselessly to her sister's room, groping
for the door in the dark of the landing, she called: "Iole!" And again:
"Iole! Come to me! It is I!"

The door swung noiselessly; a d