, put
into words? You have effected some change in me which defies analysis,
a change of attitude,--to attempt to dogmatize it would ruin it. I
prefer to leave it undefined--not even to call it an acquisition of
faith. I have faith," she said, simply, "in what you have become, and
which has made you dare, superbly, to cast everything away. . .
It is that, more than anything you have said. What you are."

For the instant he lost control of himself.

"What you are," he replied. "Do you realize--can you ever realize what
your faith in me has been to me?"

She appeared to ignore this.

"I did not mean to say that you have not made many things clear, which
once were obscure, as I wrote you. You have convinced me that true
belief, for instance, is the hardest thing in the world, the denial of
practically all these people, who profess to believe, represent. The
majority of them insist that humanity is not to be trusted. . ."

They had reached, in an incredibly brief time, the corner of Park Street.

"When are you leaving?" he asked, in a voice that sounded harsh in his
own ears.

"Come!" she said gently, "I'm not going in yet, for a while."

The Park lay before them, an empty, garden filled with checquered light
and shadows under the moon. He followed her across the gravel,
glistening with dew, past the statue of the mute statesman with arm
upraised, into pastoral stretches--a delectable country which was theirs
alone. He did not take it in, save as one expression of the breathing
woman at his side. He was but partly conscious of a direction he had not
chosen. His blood throbbed violently, and a feeling of actual physical
faintness was upon him. He was being led, helplessly, all volition gone,
and the very idea of resistance became chimerical . . . .

There was a seat under a tree, beside a still lake burnished by the moon.
It seemed as though he could not bear the current of her touch, and yet
the thought of its removal were less bearable . . . For she had put
her own hand out, not shyly, but with a movement so fraught with grace,
so natural that it was but the crowning bestowal.

"Alison!" he cried, "I can't ask it of you. I have no right--"

"You're not asking it," she answered. "It is I who am asking it."

"But I have no future--I may be an outcast to-morrow. I have nothing to
offer you." He spoke more firmly now, more commandingly.

"Don't you see, dear, that it is just because your future as obscure that
I