d may misunderstand, may sneer at your
taking me. I knew that you were big enough even for that, when you
understood it, coming from me. I wanted to be with you, now, that we
might fight it out together."

"What have I done to deserve so priceless a thing?" he asked.

She smiled at him again, her lip trembling.

"Oh, I'm not priceless, I'm only real, I'm only human--human and tired.
You are so strong, you can't know how tired. Have you any idea why I
came out here, this summer? It was because I was desperate--because I
had almost decided to marry some one else."

She felt him start.

"I was afraid of it;" he said.

"Were you? Did you think, did you wonder a little about me?" There was
a vibrant note of triumph to which he reacted. She drew away from him.
a little. "Perhaps, when you know how sordid my life has been, you won't
want me."

"Is--Is that your faith, Alison?" he demanded. "God forbid! You have
come to a man who also has confessions to make."

"Oh, I am glad. I want to know all of you--all, do you understand? That
will bring us even closer together. And it was one thing I felt about
you in the beginning, that day in the garden, that you had had much to
conquer--more than most men. It was a part of your force and of your
knowledge of life. You were not a sexless ascetic who preached a mere
neutral goodness. Does that shock you?"

He smiled in turn.

"I went away from here, as I once told you, full of a high resolution not
to trail the honour of my art--if I achieved art--in the dust. But I
have not only trailed my art--I trailed myself. In New York I became
contaminated, --the poison of the place, of the people with whom I came in
contact, got into my blood. Little by little I yielded--I wanted so to
succeed, to be able to confound those who had doubted and ridiculed me!
I wasn't content to wait to deny myself for the ideal. Success was in
the air. That was the poison, and I only began to realize it after it
was too late.

"Please don't think I am asking pity--I feel that you must know. From
the very first my success--which was really failure--began to come in the
wrong way. As my father's daughter I could not be obscure. I was sought
out, I was what was called picturesque, I suppose. The women petted me,
although some of them hated me, and I had a fascination for a certain
kind of men--the wrong kind. I began going to dinners, house parties,
to recognize, that advantages came that way . . . . It