-and I DON'T see things as
I used to. If that book of mine had appeared three years ago I have no
doubt I should have believed it to be the greatest thing ever printed.
Now, when people tell me it is and I read what the reviewers said and
all that, I--I DON'T believe, I KNOW it isn't great--that is, the most
of it isn't. There is some pretty good stuff, of course, but--You see,
I think it wasn't the poems themselves that made it sell; I think it was
all the fool tommyrot the papers printed about me, about my being a hero
and all that rubbish, when they thought I was dead, you know. That--"

She interrupted. "Oh, don't!" she cried. "Don't! I don't care about
the old book. I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about you. YOU
aren't the same--the same toward me."

"Toward you, Madeline? I don't understand what you mean."

"Yes, you do. Of course you do. If you were the same as you used to be,
you would let Father help you. We used to talk about that very thing
and--and you didn't resent it then."

"Didn't I? Well, perhaps I didn't. But I think I remember our speaking
sometimes of sacrificing everything for each other. We were to live in
poverty, if necessary, and I was to write, you know, and--"

"Stop! All that was nonsense, nonsense! you know it."

"Yes, I'm afraid it was."

"You know it was. And if you were as you used to be, if you--"

"Madeline!"

"What? Why did you interrupt me?"

"Because I wanted to ask you a question. Do you think YOU are exactly
the same--as you used to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't YOU changed a little? Are you as sure as you were then--as sure
of your feeling toward me?"

She gazed at him, wide-eyed. "WHAT do you mean?"

"I mean ARE you sure? It has seemed to me that perhaps--I was out of
your life for a long time, you know, and during a good deal of that
time it seemed certain that I had gone forever. I am not blaming you,
goodness knows, but--Madeline, isn't there--Well, if I hadn't come back,
mightn't there have been some one--else?"

She turned pale.

"What do--" she stammered, inarticulate. "Why, why--"

"It was Captain Blanchard, wasn't it?"

The color came back to her cheeks with a rush. She blushed furiously and
sprang to her feet.

"How--how can you say such things!" she cried. "What do you mean? How
DARE you say Captain Blanchard took advantage of--How--how DARE you say
I was not loyal to you? It is not true. It is not true. I was. I am.
There hasn't