nd a difficulty in curbing
his impatience. Trying a fresh cast, he described his latest invitation
to lecture in America. Barbara listened with half her attention,
mechanically agreeing that it would be an experience and a change,
mechanically accepting his figures and wounding him with an indifference
which was made greater by her early love of sharing his triumphs with
him. He hunted through a pile of letters and gave her one in which the
previous occupant of his flat offered generous terms for the remainder
of the lease.

"We must decide some time when we're going to be married," he said, "and
where we're going to live."

"_Please_, Eric!"

He looked at her in amazement and drew slowly away from her side,
walking to the fire-place and resting his forehead on his arm.

"I--don't . . . I don't understand what's the matter," he murmured at
length. "Last night . . . You did it of your own free will, Babs. . . .
And unless you wanted to hurt me more completely and ingeniously than
you've ever succeeded in doing before----"

The girl winced and covered her face with her hands.

"I wouldn't hurt you for the world!" she whispered. "Ah! God! I wish I'd
never met you, I wish I'd never been born! Don't you _see_ that I
couldn't go on taking, taking, taking with both hands--all your
sweetness and gentleness, everything--and giving you nothing in return?
When you said that I'd spoiled your work . . . Didn't I see that I'd
already ruined your health and made you miserable? I _tried_ to make
amends, but it wasn't in my power. I ought never to have given you that
promise!"

"Don't you love me any more, Babs?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well, what have I done since last night?"

"You haven't done anything. . . . It was a letter. . . . You remember
about Jim Loring's ball just before the war----"

Eric drew her head on to his shoulder and kissed her.

"My darling, that's all so long ago! Why distress yourself with it now?"

"Jack was staying with the Knightriders," she persisted. "Kathleen
Knightrider's the only soul who's ever suspected. . . . _I_ never told
her. She's heard that Jack has been sent to Switzerland and she wrote
this morning to--to congratulate me! I tried to make amends to Jack too.
. . . Oh, the mockery of it! All last night I saw the two of you
pulling, pulling . . ."

"He's had his chance," Eric told her again.

"I wish God _had_ struck me down," she whispered.

Eric invented an excuse to leave early, for,