that after all these years----"

"Maybe," said he slowly. "But you see, after all, it's only a
theoretical hurt I'm taking if I stand between you and these damned
harpies here. They're going to torture you, Aurora, going to flay and
burn you alive. I'd like to do about anything I could for you, anything
a man can in such a case as ours. As for sacrifice--why, whatever you
think I think of you, I believe we can both call it sure that I want to
stand between you and the world. I want to have the _right_ to take care
of you. It's what I want to do--must do. I've waited too long. But it's
what I always have intended. You'd never let me. I never seemed to get
around to it before. But now----"

"Impossible!" she whispered, white, her great eyes somber. "There is no
way. Love of man has gone by for me. It knocked once. It has gone by."

"Wait now, let us go on with the argument just a little further, my
dear!" said he gently.

"We have argued too long already," she said faintly. "You must go.
Please go--please don't talk to me. You must not."

"I wish I could agree with you," said he, disturbed and frowning,
"because I don't want to make you any more unhappy. But listen, it just
seemed to me that this was providential--I had to come to you and tell
you what I have told you tonight. Why, widows remarry--time and again
widows marry."

"Yes, _widows_!" He could barely hear the sob which she stifled in her
throat.

"Well, then," said he, "how about you and me? I don't think it's a fair
argument, but I ought to point out to you that perhaps I've got a chance
in the world. They wanted me, for instance, to make the run for the
senatorship--against Judge Henderson. Today I agreed with him not to
accept the candidacy. In return he agreed to drop that case against Don.
Well, you've traded me out of the United States Senate, Aurora. But I
made that trade--for you and the boy."

She looked up at him in sudden astonishment. She could not evade the
feeling of shelter in his great presence as he stood there, speaking
calmly, absolutely in hand, a grotesque and yet a great soul--yes, a
great soul as it seemed to her, so used to littler souls. After all, she
never really had known this man. Sacrifice? Had he not given freely, as
a sacrifice, the greatest gift a man has--his hope for power and
preferment? And he spoke of it as though it were a little thing. Aurora
Lane was large enough to know a large act, belittled though it were by