ame back I was cured--cured if ever a man was! It was of
Charles, not of you, Catherine, that I thought on my way home. To me
Charles and you had become one. I swear it!" He repeated: "To me you and
Charles were one."

He waited a long moment, and then, more slowly, he went on, as if
pleading with himself--with her: "You know what I found here in place of
what I had left? I found Charles a----"

Catherine Nagle shrank back. She put up her right hand to ward off the
word, and Mottram, seizing her hand, held it in his with a convulsive
clasp. "'Twas not the old feeling that came back to me--that I again
swear, Catherine. 'Twas something different--something infinitely
stronger--something that at first I believed to be all noble----"

He stopped speaking, and Catherine Nagle uttered one word--a curious
word. "When?" she asked, and more urgently again she whispered, "When?"

"Long before I knew!" he said hoarsely. "At first I called the passion
that possessed me by the false name of 'friendship.' But that poor
hypocrisy soon left me! A month ago, Catherine, I found myself
wishing--I'll say this for myself, it was for the first time--that
Charles was dead. And then I knew for sure what I had already long
suspected--that the time had come for me to go----"

He dropped her hand, and stood before her, abased in his own eyes, but
one who, if a criminal, had had the strength to be his own judge and
pass heavy sentence on himself.

"And now, Catherine--now that you understand why I go, you will bid me
God-speed. Nay, more"--he looked at her, and smiled wryly--"if you are
kind, as I know you to be kind, you will pray for me, for I go from you
a melancholy, as well as a foolish man."

She smiled a strange little wavering smile, and Mottram was deeply moved
by the gentleness with which Catherine Nagle had listened to his story.
He had been prepared for an averted glance, for words of cold
rebuke--such words as his own long-dead mother would surely have
uttered to a man who had come to her with such a tale.

* * * * *

They walked on for a while, and Catherine again broke the silence by a
question which disturbed her companion. "Then your agent's letter was
not really urgent, James?"

"The letters of an honest agent always call for the owner," he muttered
evasively.

They reached the orchard gate. Catherine held the key in her hand, but
she did not place it in the lock--instead she paused aw