June, is dead," he said in level, unemotional tones.

Gillian wrung her hands.

"But even so----! Magda didn't kill her, Michael. She couldn't tell--she
didn't know that June----" She halted, faltering into silence.

"That June was soon to have a child?" Michael finished her sentence for
her. "No. But she knew she loved her husband. And she stole him from
her. When I think of it all, of June . . . little June! . . . And
Storran--gone under! Oh, what's the use of talking?"--savagely. "You
know--and I know--that there's nothing left. Nothing!"

"If you loved her, Michael--"

"If I loved her!" he broke out stormily. "You're not a man, and you
don't know what it means to want the woman you love night and day, to
ache for her with every fibre of your body--and to know that you can't
have her and keep your self-respect!"

"Oh--self-respect!" There was a note of contempt in Gillian's voice. "If
you set your 'self-respect' above your love--"

"You don't understand!" he interrupted violently. "You're a woman and
you can't understand! I must honour the woman I love--it's the kernel of
the whole thing. I must look up to her--not down!"

Gillian clasped her hands.

"Oh!" she said in a low, vehement voice. "I don't think we women _want_
to be 'looked up to.' It sets us so far away. We're not goddesses. We're
only women, Michael, with all our little weaknesses just the same as
men. And we want the men who love us to be comrades--not worshippers.
Good pals, who'll forgive us and help us up when we tumble down, just as
we'd be ready to forgive them and help them up. Can't you--can't you do
that for Magda?"

"No," he said shortly. "I can't."

Gillian was at the end of her resources. She would not tell him that
Magda proposed joining the Sisters of Penitence for a year. Somehow she
felt she would not wish him to know this or to be influenced by it.

She had made her appeal to Michael himself, to his sheer love for the
woman he had intended to make his wife. And she had failed because
the man was too bitter, too sore, to see clearly through the pain that
blinded him.

His voice, curt and clipped, broke the silence which had fallen.

"Have you said all you came to say?" he asked with frigid politeness.

"All," she returned sadly.

He moved slowly towards the door.

"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand.

He took it and held it in his. For a moment the hard eyes softened a
little.

"I'm sorry I can't do what yo