I do not know what
would become----"

"Good God!" cried Richard. He sprang to his feet, and the heavy
book fell with a muffled crash upon the floor, sprawling open upon
its face, its leaves in disorder. He moved away from it, staring
at it in incredulous dismay. But he knew.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Memory, that drowsy custodian, had wakened slowly, during this
hour, beginning the process with fitful gleams of
semi-consciousness, then, irritated, searching its pockets for the
keys and dazedly exploring blind passages; but now it flung wide
open the gallery doors, and there, in clear light, were the rows
of painted canvasses.

He remembered "that day" when he was waiting for a car, and Laura
Madison had stopped for a moment, and then had gone on, saying she
preferred to walk. He remembered that after he got into the car he
wondered why he had not walked home with her; had thought himself
"slow" for not thinking of it in time to do it. There had seemed
something very "taking" about her, as she stopped and spoke to
him, something enlivening and wholesome and sweet--it had struck
him that Laura was a "very nice girl." He had never before noticed
how really charming she could look; in fact he had never thought
much about either of the Madison sisters, who had become "young
ladies" during his mourning for his brother. And this pleasant
image of Laura remained with him for several days, until he
decided that it might be a delightful thing to spend an evening
with her. He had called, and he remembered, now, Cora's saying to
him that he looked at her sometimes as if he did not like her; he
had been surprised and astonishingly pleased to detect a
mysterious feeling in her about it.

He remembered that almost at once he had fallen in love with Cora:
she captivated him, enraptured him, as she still did--as she
always would, he felt, no matter how she treated him or what she
did to him. He did not analyze the process of the captivation and
enrapturement--for love is a mystery and cannot be analyzed. This
is so well known that even Richard Lindley knew it, and did not
try!

. . . Heartsick, he stared at the fallen book. He was a man, and
here was the proffered love of a woman he did not want. There was
a pathos in the ledger; it seemed to grovel, sprawling and
dishevelled in the circle of lamp-light on the floor: it was as if
Laura herself lay pleading at his feet, and he looked down upon
her, compassionate but revolted. H