n she sat silent, watching the shifting splendor of the sunset. He
could see her profile set against the deep-red glow like an intaglio on
sard.

"I wonder," she said, "if you have any idea of the many things you've
taught me?"

"I?" He almost jumped from his seat. "You're laughing at me."

"You've taught me," she went on, quietly, "how hard and narrow my
character has been. You've taught me how foolish a thing pride can be,
and how unlovely we can make even that noble thing we call a spirit of
independence. You've taught me how big human nature is--how vast and
deep and--and _good_. I don't think I believed in it before. I know I
didn't. I thought it was the right thing, the clever thing, to distrust
it, to discredit it. I did that. It was because, until I knew you--that
is, until I knew you as you _are_--I had no conception of it--not any
more than a peasant who's always starved on barren, inland hills has a
conception of the sea."

He was uncomfortable. He was afraid. If she continued to speak like that
he might say something difficult to withdraw. He fell back awkwardly on
the subject of her father and the job at Stoughton.

"And you won't have to worry about him, Miss Guion, when you're over
there in England," he said, earnestly, as he summed up the advantages he
had to offer, "because if he's ill, I'll look after him, and if he's
_very_ ill, I'll cable. I promise you I will--on my solemn word."

"You won't have to do that," she said, simply, "because I'm going, too."

Again he almost jumped from his chair. "Going, too? Going where?"

"Going to Stoughton with papa."

"But--but--Miss Guion--"

"I'm not going to be married," she continued, in the same even tone. "I
thought perhaps Colonel Ashley might have told you. That's all over."

"All over--how?"

"He's been so magnificent--so wonderful. He stood by me during all my
trouble, never letting me know that he'd changed in any way--"

"Oh, he's changed, has he?"

Because he sat slightly behind her, she missed the thunderous gloom in
his face, while she was too intent on what she was saying to note the
significance in his tone.

"Perhaps he hasn't changed so much, after all. As I think it over I'm
inclined to believe that he was in love with Drusilla from the
first-only my coming to Southsea brought in a disturbing--"

"Then he's a hound! I'd begun to think better of him--I did think better
of him--but now, by God, I'll--"

With a backward gesture