care much either way, and I don't,
for myself, because I shall be out of it all, and because I know you
loved Jack too well not to be careful for his sake, what you do. But I
care more for your sake than I thought I cared at first. You're so
quiet, I know I've struck you hard. Almost--I wish I hadn't told."

"I don't," answered Max with an effort. "And you mustn't. It was the
only thing."

And yet, even as he spoke, he was conscious of wishing that she had not
told. Some women, having done what she had done for the love of a man
and for their own vanity, would have gone out of the world in
silence--still for the love of the man, and for their own vanity. Vanity
had been the ruling passion of Rose Doran's life. Max had realized it
before. Yet something in the end had been stronger than vanity, and had
beaten it down. He wondered dimly what the thing was. Perhaps fear, lest
soon, on the other side of the dark valley, she should have to meet
reproach in the only eyes she had ever loved. And she needed help in
crossing--Jack Doran's help. Maybe this was her way of reaching out for
it. She had told the truth; and she seemed to think that was enough. She
advised Max to leave things as they were, after all. And he was tempted
to obey.

No longer was he stunned by the blow that had fallen. He felt the pain
of it now, and faced the future consequences. He stood to lose
everything: his career, for Max had his vanity, too; and without the
Doran name and the Doran money he could not remain in the army.

If he resolved to hand over all that was his to the girl, he must go
away, must leave the country.

He would have to think of some scheme by which the girl could get her
rights, and the world could be left in ignorance of Rose Doran's fraud.
To accomplish this, he must sacrifice himself utterly. He must disappear
and be forgotten by his friends--a penniless man, without a country. And
Billie Brookton would be lost to him.

Strange, this was his first conscious thought of her since he had
stepped out of the train, almost his first since leaving her at Fort
Ellsworth. He was half shocked at his forgetfulness of such a jewel, so
nearly his, the jewel so many other men wanted. He wanted her, too,
desperately, now that the clouds had parted for an instant to remind him
of the bright world where she lived--the world of his past.

"You're so deadly still!" Rose murmured. "Are you thinking hard things
of me?"

"No, never that," M