cried wistfully.

"It's never too late for love so long as we're both alive."

"Not for love, but...."

"You've got to see this as I see it, sweetheart. I'm a man--primitive,
if you like. I've done wild and evil things--plenty of them. What of
that? I slough them off and trample them down. The heart of me is clean,
isn't it?"

"Yes."

To look at him was enough to clear away all doubt. He had the faults
that go with full-blooded elemental life, but at bottom this virile
American was sound.

"Well! Isn't that enough?"

The little movement of her hands toward him seemed to beg for pity.
"Jack! I can't help it. Maybe I'm a little prig, but ... mustn't we
guide our lives by principle and not by impulse?"

"Do I guide mine by impulse?"

"Don't you?" She hurried on to contradict, or at least to modify, her
reluctant charge. "Oh, I know you are a great influence here. You're
known all over the state. Men follow you wherever you lead. Why should I
criticize you--I, who have done nothing all my life but lean on others?"

"Go ahead. When I ask you to marry me I invite your criticism."

"I have to take little steps and to keep in well-worn paths. I can't
make laws for myself as you do. Those that have been made may be wrong,
but I must obey them."

"Why? Why should you? If they're wrong, fight against them."

"I can't argue with you ... dear. But I know what I think right. I
_want_ to think as you do. Oh, you don't know how I long to throw my
Puritan conscience overboard and just trust your judgment. I ... admire
you tremendously. But I can't give in ... I can't."

The muscles stood out on his lean cheeks as he set his teeth. "You've
got to, Moya. Our love has been foreordained. Do you think it is for
nothing that we met again after all these years? You're mine--the one
woman in the world I want and am going to have."

She shook her head sadly. "No ... no!"

"Is it the money I have made highgrading? Is that what stands between
us? If I were able to come to you without a dollar but with clean
hands--would you marry me then?"

He leaned toward her, eager, ardent, passionate, the color in his cheeks
burning to a dull brick tint beneath the tan. Body and soul she swayed
toward him. All her vital love of life, of things beautiful and good and
true, fused in a crescendo of emotion.

"My dear ... my dear, I'm only a girl--and I love you." Somehow her
hands were buried in the strong grip of his. "But ... I can't liv