n the way," she said, smiling as through pain,
"before you may--"

"What is it?" he broke in, eagerly. "Speak!"

"Jericho!"

Then she was gone, and he was alone with the memory of the past.

CHAPTER XV

In the year of grace in which this story moved, the Macon fair began the
tenth day of July. All things were now leading up to it, for July had
come, and the days, while really long, passed quickly.

Glenning had a fearful task before him. Only once since that memorable
night when so many things had happened--when he had been almost scorned
by the girl he loved; when he had held a mob at bay and saved a
worthless scoundrel's life; when he had received a young lady caller in
his office at two o'clock in the morning; when he had walked home with
her to be ruthlessly wakened from his blissful love-dream--only once
since that night had he been able to get himself to that point of moral
courage which would enable him to make his confession, and plead his
cause unhampered and with a conscience at rest. And in that hour when
his soul was trembling on the verge of a full disclosure of all that had
passed during that hateful, bitter-sweet time in Jericho, an
interruption had come at the inopportune moment, and his chance went,
for when they were together again alone that very evening he knew that
it was impossible for him to speak. He knew, too, that possession and a
full reciprocity of affection would never be his until he had lain bare
that hidden portion of his life. He wanted to tell it; he wanted her to
know. It was not a desire for concealment which held his tongue. That
night when they stood in the wan moonlight by the portico steps, he had
forgotten the untold secret. He knew only that she was before him, very
close to him; that he had held her hand, had, for a few moments, pressed
her young body to his as they went down the steps at his office; knew
that she had filled him and thrilled him with a rare happiness, and that
life without her would be commonplace, sunless and dreary. Another
moment his consuming love would have been pouring from his lips in
fervent words of fire, when he heard that name which he had come to
hate--"Jericho!"

In the days which followed he fought with himself again, and some there
are who will know what this means, and others there are who will not.
But of all battles fought, surely this is the most terrible, when a man
fights himself. It was not the old struggle with which he ha