me different. For the first time she wrote me with
reserves. I took a day's vacation and I went down to Detton Magna to see
what had happened."

"That was the day," she interrupted softly, "when--"

"That was the day," he assented. "I remember so well getting out of
the train and walking up that long, miserable street. School wasn't
over, and I went straight to her cottage, as I have often done before.
There was a change. Her cheap furniture had gone. It was like one of
those little rooms we had dreamed of. There was a soft carpet upon the
floor, Chippendale furniture, flowers, hothouse fruit, and on the
mantelpiece--the photograph of a man."

He paused, and they took the whole one long turn along the wind-swept,
shadowy deck in silence.

"Presently she came," he continued. "The change was there, too. She was
dressed simply enough, but even I, in my inexperience, knew the
difference. She came in--she, who had spoken of suicide a short time
ago--singing softly to herself. She saw me, our eyes met, and the story
was told. I knew, and she knew that I knew."

It seemed as though something in his tone might have grated upon her.
Gently, but with a certain firmness, she drew her hand away from his.

"You were very angry, I suppose?" she murmured.

Some instinct told him exactly what was passing in her thoughts. In a
moment he was on the defensive.

"I think," he said, "that if it had been any other man--but listen. The
photograph which I took from the mantelpiece and threw into the fire was
the photograph of my own cousin. His father and my father were brought up
together. My father chose the Church, his founded the factory in which
most of the people in Detton Magna were employed. When my grandfather
died, it was found that he was penniless. The whole of his money had gone
towards founding the Douglas Romilly Shoe Company. I won't weary with the
details. The business prospered, but we remained in poverty. When my
mother died I was left with nothing. My uncle made promises and never
kept them. He, too, died. My cousin and I quarrelled. He and his father
both held that the money advanced by my grandfather had been a gift and
not a loan. They offered me a pittance. Well, I refused anything. I spoke
plain words, and that was an end of it. And then I came back and I saw
his picture, my cousin's picture, upon the mantelpiece. I can see it now
and it looks hateful to me. All the old fires burned up in me. I
remembered my f