g of sight. There she was on my side of the chasm that had
separated us--alone with me--mine--mine! And my heart dilated with pride.
But a moment later came a sense of humility. Her beauty intoxicated me, but
her youth, her fineness, so fragile for such rough hands as mine, awed and
humbled me.

"I must be very gentle," said I to myself. "I have promised that she shall
never regret. God help me to keep my promise! She is mine, but only to
preserve and protect."

And that idea of _responsibility in possession_ was new to me--was
to have far-reaching consequences. Now that I think of it, I believe it
changed the whole course of my life.

She was leaning forward, her elbow on the casement of the open window of
the brougham, her cheek against her hand; the moonlight was glistening
on her round, firm forearm and on her serious face. "How far, far away
from--everything it seems here!" she said, her voice tuned to that soft,
clear light, "and how beautiful it is!" Then, addressing the moon and the
shadows of the trees rather than me: "I wish I could go on and on--and
never return to--to the world."

"I wish we could," said I.

My tone was low, but she started, drew back into the brougham, became an
outline in the deep shadow. In another mood that might have angered me.
Just then it hurt me so deeply that to remember it to-day is to feel a
faint ache in the scar of the long-healed wound. My face was not hidden as
was hers; so, perhaps, she saw. At any rate, her voice tried to be friendly
as she said: "Well--I have crossed the Rubicon. And I don't regret. It was
silly of me to cry. I thought I had been through so much that I was beyond
such weakness. But you will find me calm from now on, and reasonable."

"Not too reasonable, please," said I, with an attempt at her lightness. "A
reasonable woman is as trying as an unreasonable man."

"But we are going to be sensible with each other," she urged, "like two
friends. Aren't we?"

"We are going to be what we are going to be," said I. "We'll have to take
life as it comes."

That clumsy reminder set her to thinking, stirred her vague uneasiness in
those strange circumstances to active alarm. For presently she said, in a
tone that was not so matter-of-course as she had tried to make it: "We'll
go now to my Uncle Frank's. He's a brother of my father's. I always used to
like him best--and still do. But he married a woman mama thought--queer.
They hadn't much, so he lives away u