ords sobbed like notes upon an instrument strung
to breaking pitch.

"My dear one! My dear one!" His voice, too, was sharp and pained; he
strove to turn in his chair, but she restrained him.

"No! No! Say it without looking. You know me? I am Maxine?"

"Of course you are Maxine!"

"Ah!"

It was a short, swift sound like the sobbing breath of a spent runner.
It spoke a thousand things, and with its vibrations trembling upon her
lips, Maxine came round the chair and Blake, looking up, saw Max--Max
of old, Max of the careless clothes, the clipped waving locks.

It is in moments grotesque or supreme that men show themselves. He
sprang to his feet; he stared at the apparition until his eyes grew
wide, but all he said was 'God!' very softly to himself. 'God!' And then
again, 'God!'

It was Maxine who opened the flood-gates of emotion; Maxine who, with
wild gesture and broken voice, dressed the situation in words.

"Now it is over! Now it is finished--the whole foolish play! Now you
have your sight--and your liberty to hate me! Hate me! Hate me! I am
waiting."

"God!" whispered Blake again, not hearing her, piecing his thoughts
together as a waking man tries to piece a dream. 'God!'

The reiteration tortured her. She suddenly caught his arm, forcing him
into contact with her. "Do not speak to yourself!" she cried. "Speak to
me! Say all you think! Hate me! Hate me!"

Then at last he broke through the confusion of his mind, startling her
as such men will always startle women by their innate singleness of
thought.

"Hate you?" he said. "Why, in God's name, should I hate you?"

"Because it is right and just."

"That I should hate you, because I have been a fool? I do not see that."

"But, Ned!" she cried; then, suddenly, at its sharpest, her voice broke;
she threw herself upon her knees beside the chair and sobbed.

And then it was that Blake showed himself. Kneeling down beside her, he
put both arms about the boyish figure and, holding it close, poured
forth--not questions, not reproaches, not protestations--but a stream
of compassion.

"Poor child! Poor child! Poor child! What a fool I've been! What a brute
I've been!"

But Maxine sobbed passionately, shrinking away from him, as though his
touch were pain.

"My child! My child! How foolish I have been! But how foolish you have
been, too--how sweetly foolish! You gave with one hand and took away
with the other. But now it is all over. Now you are going to