lie," said Silverthorn, calmly.

"Didn't you say to her, 'You have never yet fully engaged yourself to
me?' Weren't you pleading?"

"Yes. I was begging that she would forget all the words of love I had
ever spoken, and listen to you when you should come to tell her your
story."

Vibbard's head bowed itself in humiliation and wonder. He came forward
two or three steps, and sank into a chair.

"Is this possible?" he inquired, at last.

"And you, too, had loved her!"

Silverthorn vouchsafed no reply.

Vibbard, struggling with remorse, uncertainty, and a dimly returning
hope, brought himself to speak once more, hesitatingly.

"What did she say?"

"At first she would not tolerate my proposal. I saw there was a
conflict in her mind. Something warned me what it was, yet I could not
help fancying that she might really be unwilling to give me up. So
then I said I had made up my mind any way, as things stood, to return
you your money. I--forgive me, Bill, but it was not treachery to
you--only justice to all--I asked her if she would wish to marry me as
I was, poor and without a future."

"And she--" asked Vibbard, trembling. "What did she say?"

Silverthorn let the pocket-book fall, and buried his face in his
hands. It was answer enough for his friend.

Vibbard came over and knelt beside him, and tried to rouse him. He
stroked his pale brown hair, and called him repeatedly "Dear old boy."

"Poor Thorny, I wish I could do something for you," he said, gently.
"Are you sure you understood her?"

The other suddenly looked up.

"Don't blame her, Bill," he said, beseechingly. "Don't let it hurt
your love for her. There was nothing mercenary. She hesitated a
moment--and then I saw that it had all been a dream of the impossible.
I had always associated this money with myself. It turned back the
whole current of her ideas, and upset everything, when I separated
myself from it. All the plans of going away--all that life I had
talked of--had to be scattered to the winds in a moment. She did not
love me enough, for myself alone!"

"Poor Thorny!" again murmured his friend.

* * * * *

Love, amid all its other resemblances, is like the spirit of battle.
It fires men to press on toward the goal, even though a brother by
their side, pushing in the same direction, should fall with a mortal
wound. And the fighter goes on, to wed with victory, while his brother
lies dead far behind cheated of h