ce, Miss
Guion--"

"I know. That's why I asked you to come. I want you to keep Colonel
Ashley from doing what he proposed this afternoon."

She spoke more abruptly, more nervously, than was her habit.

"I would if I could; but I don't know that I've any way of dissuading
him."

"You needn't dissuade him. You've simply to refuse to take his money."

"It's not quite so easy as that, because there's no direct business
between him and me. If Mr. Guion wanted to pay me what I've lent him, I
couldn't decline to accept it. Do you see?"

In the dim light he noticed her head nodding slowly. "Oh, so that's the
way it is? It would have to be done through papa?"

"It would have to be done through him. And if he preferred to use
Colonel Ashley's money rather than mine, I should have nothing at all to
say."

"I see; I see," she commented, thoughtfully. "And I don't know how papa
would feel about it, or how far I could count on him."

For a few minutes Davenant said nothing. When he spoke it was with some
amazement at his own temerity. "I thought you didn't want my help, if
you could possibly get any other?"

The words took her by surprise. He could see her draw her cloak more
tightly about her, her hands still within its folds.

"I felt that way at first. I don't now. Perhaps I understand you a
little better. But, in any case, I couldn't take his."

He pushed the liberty a little further. "But if you're going to marry
him--"

"That's just it. I wonder if you've the faintest idea of what it means
to a woman to marry a man by making herself a burden to him in
advance--and such a burden!"

"It wouldn't be a burden to any one who--who--"

"I know what you're going to say. Love does make a difference. Of
course. But it acts one way on the man and another way on the woman. In
proportion as it urges him to make the sacrifice, it impels her to
prevent it."

He grew still bolder. The cover of the night and the intimacy of the
situation made him venturesome. "Then why don't you break off your
engagement?"

It was a long while before she answered. "He won't let me," she said
then. "And, besides," she added, after slight hesitation, "it's
difficult not to be true to a man who's showing himself so noble."

"Is that your only reason?"

She raised her head slightly and turned toward him. He expected
something cutting, but she only said: "What makes you ask that?"

He was a little frightened. He backed down, and yet not al