individual. Life--other lives--press too closely. You, living your life
as seemed best and easiest, and carrying down with you into shipwreck
the little Marie and--myself!

"For, face to face with the fact, I cannot accept it, Walter. It is not
only a question of my past against yours. It is of steady revolt
and loathing of the whole thing; not the flash of protest before one
succumbs to the inevitable, but a deep-seated hatred that is a part of
me and that would never forget.

"You say that you are the same man I would have married, only more
honest for concealing nothing. But--and forgive me this, it insists on
coming up in my mind--were you honest, really? You told me, and it took
courage, but wasn't it partly fear? What motive is unmixed? Honesty--and
fear, Walter. You were preparing against a contingency, although you may
not admit this to yourself.

"I am not passing judgment on you. God forbid that I should! I am only
trying to show you what is in my mind, and that this break is final. The
revolt is in myself, against something sordid and horrible which I will
not take into my life. And for that reason time will make no difference.

"I am not a child, and I am not unreasonable. But I ask a great deal of
this life of mine that stretches ahead, Walter--home and children, the
love of a good man, the fulfillment of my ideals. And you ask me to
start with a handicap. I cannot do it. I know you are resentful, but--I
know that you understand.

"ANITA."

CHAPTER XXV

The little Georgiev was in trouble those days. The Balkan engine was
threatening to explode, but continued to gather steam, with Bulgaria
sitting on the safety-valve. Austria was mobilizing troops, and there
were long conferences in the Burg between the Emperor and various
bearded gentlemen, while the military prayed in the churches for war.

The little Georgiev hardly ate or slept. Much hammering went on all day
in the small room below Harmony's on the Wollbadgasse. At night,
when the man in the green velours hat took a little sleep, mysterious
packages were carried down the whitewashed staircase and loaded into
wagons waiting below. Once on her window-sill Harmony found among the
pigeons a carrier pigeon with a brass tube fastened to its leg.

On the morning after Harmony's flight from the garden in the Street
of Seven Stars, she received a visit from Georgiev. She had put in
a sleepless night, full of heart-searching. She charged herself w