ht be
enough. I might be content with the chance that the rest would come,
although no woman, Douglas, likes to think herself a makeshift--to be
offered anything less than the whole. You see it is for life, isn't it?
When you asked me, I never dreamed but that so long as you wanted me at
all, you wanted me more than any one else in the world. Now I know that
this was not so. I am only an insignificant little thing, Douglas, and
not fit to be your companion in many ways. But I could not marry you to
think that there would be moments when you and I would stand apart, that
there would be another woman living, whose coming might quicken your
heart, and make the world a more beautiful place for you. Can you
understand that, I wonder?"

"No," he answered fiercely. "I asked you then, I beg of you now, as an
honest man. If you will have me I will pluck out from my heart every
other memory by the roots--there shall not live in this world any other
woman for me. Nay, it is done already. She has gone for ever."

"Douglas," she said gently, "there are some things which a woman knows
more about than a man. Listen, and answer truthfully. If she and I
stood before you here, both free, both with our hands stretched out
towards you--ah, I need not go any further, need I? You think that you
have lost her, and you want me to help you to forget. It is too
dangerous an experiment, Douglas. We will leave it alone."

"I thought," he said slowly, "that you cared for me."

"As a very, very dear friend and comrade I do indeed," she answered.
"As anything else I might have learnt to--but not now."

There was a short silence between them. It was not until then, that he
realised how dear during these last few months her companionship had
been to him. He looked into the fire with sad, listless eyes. After
all, what was success worth? He had grasped at the shadow, and Cicely
with her charming little ways, her glorious companionableness and her
dainty prettiness, was lost to him for ever. He had too much
self-restraint to indulge in anything in the nature of recrimination.
In his heart he felt that Drexley had taken his place--and whose the
fault save his own? A sense of intolerable weariness swept over him as
he rose to bid her good-by. Yet he was man enough to show a brave
front.

"I believe you are right, Cicely," he said. "What I wished for after
all was selfish. Your friendship I know that I may keep."

"Always," she answered, giving him