be lazy and careless,
and live the life for which you think I'm fitted."

"You are going to give up everything?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," he answered. "It is your doing. You must take the
responsibility of it."

"But what I say--what I think, can make no difference," she almost
entreated. "I am not of enough importance to you--you cannot consider
me enough----"

"All that is something of which you know nothing," he answered,
gravely. "Something of which I have told you nothing. I am going
away--with the Donaldsons."

"People like that!" she interrupted.

"People like that. I am going with them to lead their life--to be gone
for a year, unless one thing happens. As I said, you are responsible."

"But I can't be," she implored. "It isn't possible. I can't count for
anything."

"Let me assure you that you do."

"Then I can't take the responsibility. I won't."

"Unless one thing happens I am going," he went on, inflexibly. "There
are some, I think, who believe in me--who will think I am making a
mistake."

"But your future--your career," she began, and paused abashed, as she
saw the way he watched her.

"I thought we were to have no--insincerities--no flatteries. Since I
know what you really think, such civil implications can mean nothing."

She bit her lips, pale as her cheeks were white.

"Oh!" she cried, "how horrible!"

Through all of dinner she hardly spoke. If she said nothing to Leeds,
neither would she address the man on her other side, only giving such
monosyllable answers as were necessary. The evening dragged slowly.
Leeds did not approach her. Once or twice she looked toward him, but
he did not appear to notice her. Indeed, he only came late from the
smoking room and returned after a brief appearance in the big hall.

"When," she asked once, in a timid voice, of Mrs. Gunnison, "does Mr.
Leeds go?"

"The early train," the lady answered. "I believe he leaves the house
before seven, or at some equally unearthly hour."

* * * * *

The fresh sunlight of the early morning was flooding through the open
hall door as Leeds came down the wide, main stairs. He saw, under the
_porte-cochere_, the trap ready to take him to the station, and into
which the second man, with the help of the groom, was lifting his
trunk. Here and there a housemaid was busy with duster and cloth. The
machinery of the establishment was being set in running condition, and
there was the accompany