made a gesture of impatience. "Do you never think of the future?"

"Not in your presence," laughed Nick. "I think of you--you--and only
you. Didn't you know?"

She turned away in silence. Was he tormenting her deliberately? Or did
he fail to see that she was in earnest?

There followed a pause, and then, urged by that unknown impulse that
would not be repressed, she did a curious thing. She got up, and,
facing him, she made a very earnest appeal.

"Nick, why do you always treat me like this? Why will you never be
honest with me?"

There was more of pain than reproach in the words. Her voice was deep
and very sad.

But Nick scarcely looked at her. He was pulling tufts of dried seaweed
off the rock on which he leaned.

"My dear girl," he said, "how can you expect it?"

"Expect it!" she echoed. "I don't understand. What do you mean?"

He drew himself slowly to a sitting posture. "How can I be honest with
you," he said, "when you are not honest with yourself?"

"What do you mean?" she said again.

He gave her an odd look. "You really want me to tell you?"

"Of course I do." She spoke sharply. The old scared feeling was awake
within her, but she would not yield to it. Now or never would she read
the enigma. She would know the truth, cost what it might.

"What I mean is this," said Nick. "You won't own it, of course, but
you are cheating, and you are afraid to stop. There isn't one woman in
ten thousand who has the pluck to throw down the cards when once she
has begun to cheat. She goes on--as you will go on--to the end of her
life, simply because she daren't do otherwise. You are out of the
straight, Muriel. That's why everything is such a hideous failure. You
are going to marry the wrong man, and you know it."

He looked up at her again for an instant as he said it. He had spoken
with his usual shrewd decision, but there was no hint of excitement
about him. He might have been discussing some matter of a purely
impersonal nature.

Muriel stood mutely poking holes in the sand. She could find nothing
to say to this matter-of-fact indictment.

"And now," Nick proceeded, "I will tell you why you are doing it."

She started at that, and looked up with flaming cheeks. "I don't think
I want to hear any more, Nick. It--it's rather late in the day, isn't
it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I knew you would be afraid to face it.
It's easier, isn't it, to go on cheating?"

Her eyes gleamed for a moment. He had fl