As suddenly as the eruption had come it subsided. He raised
both hands. "Forgive me," he implored, "I didn't mean that. But I am
distraught and financial affairs are very precarious, Loraine. We may
stand on the brink of a disastrous panic. It lies in Hamilton Burton's
power to make me or break me--absolutely. Don't you see what that
means?"

His wife shook her head, "I'm afraid I don't understand the intricacies
of finance." Her tone added that neither was she extravagantly
interested in them.

"It means this," Haswell spoke gravely. "You have been seen with Paul
Burton more perhaps than is advisable. Paul Burton is Hamilton Burton's
brother ... he is the one man with whom I can't afford to quarrel."

"I haven't suggested your quarreling with him."

"Then please don't drive me to it."

"Again I say that you are letting your imagination make you the victim
of absurdities. Of just what are you accusing me?"

He came over and took her hand. "I am not accusing you of anything. I am
willing to let my honor rest in your hands, but I am warning you against
innocent mistakes."

He sought to put an arm about her, but she slipped from his grasp, and
after a moment he said "Good-night" with a sort of sullen resignation,
and went out, closing the door noiselessly after him.

* * * * *

Jefferson Edwardes had tramped far. When Mary Burton had gone to her
own room, he had plunged into the thicketed slopes of the hills and
walked for hours. Since his long exile in the White Mountains he had
always held to the idea that a man can think more clearly close to the
rocks and under open skies. Just now he wanted an untinged clarity to
attend his thoughts.

Although the occurrences of the evening had possessed an Arabian Night's
quality of unreality, he felt no misgivings for the love he had
announced and pledged. It was not as though he looked back on a record
of broken promises. He had no troubling memories to sweep from his
conscience before his heart should be clear for a new entry. He had come
away from the mountains with something hermit-like in his nature and
much of the idealistic. It had been a pleasanter thing to him to keep
unsullied the more important dreams of life than to endanger them with
the transitory pleasures of the philanderer. The Mary Burton he had
known in the dilapidated farm-house had of course been nothing more than
a picturesque little waif of the country-side. Yet she