r. She felt again the muscles of his forearms snap into
tautness as he stood silent under her father's insults. She felt the
strength of his embrace calming the panic of her own heart; the touch of
the kisses that had brought her both peace and ecstasy and wakened in
her latent fires. Surely if, at last, the hot temper had broken through
and blinded him with its glare of passion, it had not--could not--have
burned to ashes all the chivalric record of these trying months. Surely
it was a thing she could forgive. The man upon whom she had leaned so
long and whom she had known so well must be more real than this alien
revealed in an ungenerous half hour. The pale sunset died into the ashes
of twilight. Her bureau clock ticked out a full hour--and a second hour
while she sat almost immovable. She argued with herself that this
conflict which had so impalpably gathered and so suddenly burst in
storm was a nightmare coming out of the shadows and had no substance of
reality.

At last she lighted a lamp and moved wearily to her writing desk. Her
pen developed a mutinous trick of balking, and her eyes of staring,
unseeing, at the wall. But at last when she had torn up sheet after
sheet, she finished her task.

"Dear Stuart," she had written. "You told me once that no one
should send you away--not even I--unless I proved myself stronger
than you. To-day you accused me of being the dupe of your
enemies--and you are going--not because I am strong enough to
banish you, but because you think me too weak to be trusted with
your love. Without absolute trust we could never hope for
happiness. So this isn't a plea, Stuart. It's not even an
apology--except that I freely acknowledge a large share of
fault--but I can't let you go without thanking you for all the
gallant sacrifices you have made and for all the ways in which you
have sought to stand between me and distress. Until to-day you
have, under fire, proven true to your code of knighthood, and
to-day I could forget--but could you? Of all the things I have ever
said to you, of love, I have no syllable to retract. Even now I
repeat it. I love you absolutely. When I suggested your leaving for
a time I did a desperately hard thing--and you misunderstood it.
Unless you can understand it, dear, it would do no good to come
back, it would only mean other humiliating memories. This is not an
easy