st, in her hand, however strange the conditions, was the
power she had determined to live for. She could, with Franklin's
millions, mould circumstances to her will, and Franklin would be no more
of an odd impediment than the husbands of many women who married for
money--less of an impediment, indeed, than most, for--though it could
only be for his money--she liked him, she was very fond of him, dear,
good, and exquisite little man. Impossible little man she, no doubt,
would once have thought him--impossible as husband, not as friend; but
so many millions made all the difference in possibility. Franklin was
now as possible as any prince, though, she wondered with the cold
languor, could a prince have a nose like that?

Franklin was possible, and it was in her hand, the power, the high
security; yet she felt that it would be in weariness rather than in
strength that the hand would close. It must close, must it not? If she
refused Franklin what, after all, was left to her, what was left in
herself or in her life that could say no to him? Nothing; nothing at
all, no hope, no desire, no faith in herself or in life. If it came to
that, the clearest embodiment of faith and life she knew sat opposite to
her waiting for an answer. He was good; she was fond of him; he had
millions; what could it be but yes? Yet, while her mind sank, like a
feather floating downwards in still air, to final, inevitable
acquiescence, while the little clock ticked with a fine, insect-like
note, and the flames made a soft flutter like the noise of shaken silk,
a blackness of chaotic suffering rose suddenly in her, and her thoughts
were whirled far away. In flashes, dear and terrible, she saw it--her
ruined youth. It rose in dim symbolic pictures, the moorland where
melancholy birds cried and circled, where the rain fell and the wind
called with a passionate cadence among the hills. To marry Franklin
Kane--would it not be to abandon the past; would it not be to desecrate
it and make it hers no longer? Was not the solitary moorland better, the
anguish and despair better than the smug, warm, sane life of purpose and
endeavour? If she was too tired, too indifferent, if she acquiesced, if
she married Franklin Kane, would she forget that the reallest thing in
her life had not been its sanity, and its purpose, but its wild, its
secret, its broken-hearted love? Surely the hateful wisdom of the daily
fact would not efface the memory so that, with years, she wou