"If you can feel about me as your words indicate, we
could never know happiness. The man whose love can make such accusations
isn't the Stuart Farquaharson that made me willing to die for him.
Perhaps after all I only _dreamed_ that man. It was a wonderful dream."

She carried the fingers of one hand to her temple in a bewildered
gesture, then shook back her head as one rousing oneself with an effort
from sleep. "If it was a dream," she went on with a forced courage,
"it's just as well to find it out in time."

"Then--" he made several attempts before he could speak--"then you are
sending me away. If that's true--as there's a God in Heaven, I'll never
come back until you send for me."

"As there's a God in Heaven," she answered steadily, almost
contemptuously, "I'll never send for you. You'll never come back unless
you come yourself--and come with a more absolute trust in your heart."

They stood under the leafless branches in a long silence, both white of
cheek and supremely shaken, until at last the man said huskily: "I
suppose I may take you to your gate?"

She shook her head. "No," she answered firmly, "I'm going across the
field. It's only a step." She turned then and walked away and as he
looked after her she did not glance backward. An erect and regal
carriage covered the misery of her retreat--but when she reached her
house she went up the stairs like some creature mortally wounded and as
she closed the door of her room, there came from her throat a low and
agonized groan. She stood leaning for a space against the panels with
her hands stretched out gropingly against the woodwork. Her lips moved
vacantly, then her knees gave way and she crumpled down and lay
insensible on the floor.

CHAPTER X

After awhile her lashes trembled and rose flickeringly upon the vague
perplexity of returning consciousness. Her head ached and her muscles
were cramped, because she had crumpled down as she stood, so that she
regained her feet falteringly and went with difficulty over to a chair
before the mirror of her dressing-table. For awhile she sat gazing dully
into her own reflected eyes. Under them were dark rings. Her cheeks were
pale and her whole face was stricken with the bleak hopelessness of
heartbreak. Her gaze fell on a framed photograph, just before her, and
she flinched. It was an enlarged snapshot of Stuart Farquaharson. But
other pictures more vitally near to her recent past were passing also
before he