must go to
sleep now."

The rest of the far-spent night Stuart stood guard outside the house.
Once, a half hour after Conscience had gone in, her blind rose and she
stood silhouetted against the lamp-light. The man stepped out of his
shadow and raised a hand, and she waved back at him. Then the lamp went
out, and he surrendered himself to thought and resolves--and mistakes.
This submission to the tyranny of weakness had gone too far. She must go
away. He must take up the fight aggressively. He did not realize that he
who was fighting for her sense of humor had lost his own. He did not
foresee that he was preparing to throw the issue on dangerous ground,
pitting his stubbornness against her stubbornness, and raising the old
duel of temperaments to combat--the immemorial conflict between puritan
and cavalier.

CHAPTER IX

Stuart Farquaharson had tempered a dignified strength with a gracious
fortitude. He had endured slanderous charges and stood with the
steadiness of a reef-light when Conscience was steering a storm ridden
course, but the constant pressure on the dykes of his self-command had
strained them until they might break at any moment and let the flood of
passion swirl through with destructive power. He was being oppressed and
seeing Conscience oppressed by a spirit which he regarded as viciously
illiberal--and he accused Conscience, in his own mind, of blind
obedience to a distorted sense of duty. Unconsciously he was seeking to
coerce her into repudiating it by a form of argument in which the
graciousness of his nature gave way to a domineering insistence.
Unconsciously, too, that form of attack aroused in her an unyielding
quality of opposition.

When he saw her next after the mid-night meeting she had seemed more
normally composed and he had seized upon the occasion to open his
campaign. They had driven over and stopped the car at a point from which
they could look out to sea, and though the summer vividness had died out
of wave and sky and the waters had taken on a touch of a leaden
grimness, there was still beauty in the picture.

For awhile they talked of unimportant things, but abruptly Stuart said:
"Dearest, I told you that I meant to fight for you even if I had to
fight with you. That's the hardest form in which the battle could come,
but one can't always choose the conditions of war." He paused and,
seeing that his eyes were troubled, Conscience smiled encouragingly.

"At least," she lau