ere not fouled. She had read weakness there, but never
dishonesty. Yes, somehow she had always believed him honest. But he
was married. That was different. The concrete, not the abstract, was
paramount. All else was swamped by the fact that he was married. She
could not believe that he had forgotten his marriage with his true
identity. She could not believe that. Her heart was against her. Love to
her was everything. She could not understand how one could ever forget.
One might forget the world, but not that, not that.

True to her code of judging not, she did not attempt to estimate
Garrison. She could not bear to use the probe. There are some things too
sacred to be dissected; so near the heart that their proximity renders
an experiment prohibitive. She believed that Garrison loved her. She
believed that above all. Surely he had given something in exchange for
all that he owned of her. If in unguarded moments her conscience assumed
the woolsack, mercy, not justice, swayed it.

She realized the mighty temptation Garrison had been forced against by
circumstances. And if he had fallen, might not she herself? Had it not
taken all her courage to renounce--to give the girl up North the right
of way? Now she understood the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation."

Yes, it had been weakness with Garrison, not dishonor. He had been
fighting against it all the time. She remembered that morning in the
tennis-court--her first intimacy with him. And he had spoken of the girl
up North. She remembered him saying: "But doesn't the Bible say to leave
all and cleave unto your wife?"

That had been a confession, though she knew it not. And she had ignored
it, taking it as badinage, and he had been too weak to brand it truth.
Strangely enough, she did not judge him for posing as Major Calvert's
nephew. Strangely enough, that seemed trivial in comparison with the
other. It was so natural for him to be the rightful heir that she could
not realize that he was an impostor, nor apportion the fact its true
significance. Her brain was unfit to grapple. Only her heart lived;
lived with the passive life of stagnation. It was choked with weeds on
the surface. She tried to patch together the broken parts of her life.
Tried and failed. She could not. She seemed to be existing without an
excuse; aimlessly, soullessly.

After many horrible days, hideous nights, she realized that she still
loved Garrison. Loved with a love that threatened to absorb e