k in that way. It sounds as
though you meant to throw me over.'

'I should have said that you had thrown me over. You come down here to
this hotel, where we are both known, with this lady whom you are not
going to marry;--and I meet you, just by chance. Had I known it, of
course I could have turned the other way. But coming on you by
accident, as I did, how am I not to speak to you? And if I speak, what
am I to say? Of course I think that the lady will succeed in marrying
you.'

'Never.'

'And that such a marriage will be your destruction. Doubtless she is
good-looking.'

'Yes, and clever. And you must remember that the manners of her
country are not as the manners of this country.'

'Then if I marry at all,' said Roger, with all his prejudice expressed
strongly in his voice, 'I trust I may not marry a lady of her country.
She does not think that she is to marry you, and yet she comes down
here and stays with you. Paul, I don't believe it. I believe you, but
I don't believe her. She is here with you in order that she may marry
you. She is cunning and strong. You are foolish and weak. Believing as
I do that marriage with her would be destruction, I should tell her my
mind,--and leave her.' Paul at the moment thought of the gentleman in
Oregon, and of certain difficulties in leaving. 'That's what I should
do. You must go in now, I suppose, and eat your dinner.'

'I may come to the hall as I go back home?'

'Certainly you may come if you please,' said Roger. Then he bethought
himself that his welcome had not been cordial. 'I mean that I shall be
delighted to see you,' he added, marching away along the strand. Paul
did go into the hotel, and did eat his dinner. In the meantime Roger
Carbury marched far away along the strand. In all that he had said to
Montague he had spoken the truth, or that which appeared to him to be
the truth. He had not been influenced for a moment by any reference to
his own affairs. And yet he feared, he almost knew, that this man,--
who had promised to marry a strange American woman and who was at this
very moment living in close intercourse with the woman after he had
told her that he would not keep his promise,--was the chief barrier
between himself and the girl that he loved. As he had listened to John
Crumb while John spoke of Ruby Ruggles, he had told himself that he
and John Crumb were alike. With an honest, true, heartfelt desire
they both panted for the companionship of a fellow-cre