that it should never be possible again--and so--and so that is why I am
here. And now you have come to-night, Jean! It is very, very strange,
and--and"--her voice was breaking again, despite the brave efforts at
self-control--"but it cannot change anything--and you must go back--to
France--and to your work. Go, Jean; go now, or I--I must go,
because--because--"

"Marie-Louise!"--it was like some panic fear at his heart.
"Marie-Louise--you do not mean that?"

"There is no other way," she said.

"But it is you who do not understand!" he told her frantically. "My
work! Can I not still work anywhere--anywhere where you and I can live
our lives together, anywhere so that the world cannot come between us
again? Somewhere in America and we will begin a new life together.
And is it not you that I need for that work? Is it not you that I must
have if I am to work at all?"

"I was not with you, Jean, in Paris," she said, and tried to smile,
"and yet all the world knows the name of Jean Laparde." She held out
her hands. "I am going now, Jean--and you must go back to that world.
It was so grand and big, Jean, for you to do what you have done
to-night--but there is _to-morrow_. Jean, dear Jean, in your great
loving impulse you have not counted that. You could not live without
the world you have come to know. You think you could to-night, because
to-night there is only love; but to-morrow all that you would so
splendidly have thrown away would begin to call to you again, and it
would grow stronger and stronger, and you could never forget, and
misery would come."

"You do not believe me?"--it was like some cruel amazement upon him.
"You do not believe me? It is because once I thought those things
greater than your love! And you do not believe me now, Marie-Louise!"

"It is because I will not let you spoil your life that I am going," she
said slowly; "it is because I must make you understand that I will not
let you do this thing; because you must, and I must make you--go back."
She stood an instant looking at him, the dark eyes wide and tearless
now, the lips parted bravely in a smile--and then she turned and walked
from him along the deck.

"Marie-Louise! No!" he cried out hoarsely, and stepped after her. "I
will not go back, Marie-Louise! I will never go back! It is done!
Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!"

She did not answer him until she had reached the head of the steerage
companionway that led below--and