hen I entered the room, with my decision. I knew, of course,
that it wouldn't please you--that you would have something to say to
it--perhaps something very serious."

"What do you mean by something very serious?"

"Our little contract, dear," said Doggie, "was based on the
understanding that you would not be uprooted from the place in which
are all your life's associations. If I broke that understanding it
would leave you a free agent to determine the contract, as the lawyers
say. So perhaps, Peggy dear, we might dismiss--well--other
considerations, and just discuss this."

Peggy twisted a rag of handkerchief and wavered for a moment. Then she
broke out, with fresh tears on her cheek.

"You're a dear of dears to put it that way. Only you could do it. I've
been a brute, old boy; but I couldn't help it. I _did_ try to play the
game."

"You did, Peggy dear. You've been wonderful."

"And although it didn't look like it, I was trying to play the game
when you came in. I really was. And so was he." She rose and threw the
handkerchief away from her. "I'm not going to step out of the
engagement by the side door you've left open for me, you dear old
simple thing. It stands if you like. We're all honourable people, and
Oliver"--she drew a sharp little breath--"Oliver will go out of our
lives."

Doggie smiled--he had risen--and taking her hands, kissed them.

"I've never known what a splendid Peggy it is, until I lose her. Look
here, dear, here's the whole thing in a nutshell. While I've been
morbidly occupied with myself and my grievances and my disgrace and my
efforts to pull through, and have gradually developed into a sort of
half-breed between a Tommy and a gentleman with every mortal thing in
me warped and changed, you've stuck to the original rotten ass you
lashed into the semblance of a man, in this very room, goodness knows
how many months, or years, or centuries ago. In my infernal
selfishness, I've treated you awfully badly."

"No, you haven't," she decided stoutly.

"Yes, I have. The ordinary girl would have told a living experiment
like me to go hang long before this. But you didn't. And now you see a
totally different sort of Doggie and you're making yourself miserable
because he's a queer, unsympathetic, unfamiliar stranger."

"All that may be so," she said, meeting his eyes bravely. "But if the
unfamiliar Doggie still cares for me, it doesn't matter."

Here was a delicate situation. Two very tender-