that you
were safe I'd go, and not even see you again, unless--but how can I
explain that I mean only good for you, with no evil or selfishness, yet
not marriage?"

"Not marriage!"

Mary wrenched her hands away, and stepped back from him. There were men,
she knew, who loved women but did not marry them. She had learned this
thing through the tragedy of her schoolmate, her friend, whose life had
been swallowed up in mystery and darkness because men could be vile and
treacherous, taking everything and giving nothing. No one save himself
could have made her believe that this deep-eyed Prince was such a man.

After all, the light in which she had seen their souls together in the
beginning of things had been a false light. She had never known his
soul, for what she thought she knew had been very noble and splendid,
and the reality was bad. It was as if she had begun to open the door of
her heart, to let in a white dove, and peeping out had seen instead a
vulture. She slammed the door shut; and the sweet new thing that had
stirred in the depths of her nature fell back asleep or dead.

"I'm going down now," she said, in a toneless voice. "Don't come with
me. I never want to speak to you again."

[Illustration: "'I CAN'T PROMISE!' SHE EXCLAIMED. 'I'VE NEVER WANTED TO
MARRY'"]

She turned away with an abrupt mechanical movement like a doll wound up
to walk, but he snatched the lace scarf that was wrapped round her arm,
and held her back for an instant.

"I implore you----" he begged. Her answer was to drop the scarf, and
leave it in his hands. She seemed to melt from his grasp like a snow
wreath; and not daring to follow then, he was left alone on the bridge
with the black and horrible ghost of his own mistake.

XVII

Mary's one thought was to escape and hide herself from every one. She
felt as fastidious women feel after a journey through miles of thick
black dust, when they cannot bear to have their faces seen with the
disfiguring stains of travel upon them. But she had to go back to the
deck where people were dancing, before she could find her way to any
hiding place; and even then she did not know how she should contrive to
leave the yacht without answering questions and fighting objections.

She was thankful to find Captain Hannaford not dancing, and standing
near the foot of the steps she had just descended. He was some one she
knew, at least, some one whose calm manner made him seem dependable.
Then,